The Accidental Fall
by animecrazychick
Summary: Envy has always been a follower of orders given by Father, but what will he do when he is sucked into a new dimension where he can make decisions for himself?
1. Chapter 1

I laughed at the idea of it. His best friend was asking me, the killer, who had done it. It was just too gratifying. I couldn't help but wish that Sloth had her original form back, so that we could laugh together at the irony. Sloth was, however, no longer a young and intriguing female, but a large, and frankly unappealing male. I wasn't about to start worrying about that then, at any rate. I had made it several years without her, I could make it a few more.

My head was full, so full that it took an entire five seconds to notice that there had been a change in scenery. My world was white, but not the kind were you can't see. It was like I was in the middle of the whiteness. My eyes fought to see what wasn't there. The only handle I had on my sanity was looking at my hands, knowing that I was still there. There was no ground either, which came with the sensation of falling. In which direction, I wasn't sure.

What happened next, well I couldn't call it landing, as I never hit anything. The best way to describe it was that a world, entirely different from my own, materialized around me. After living for as many years as I had, there were not many things that I couldn't grasp. This, however, was one of the few.

I had landed in a house, that much was easy. What sort of house, or the sort of person who owned it, was a little more difficult. In any case, it appeared that the person had money to spare. The floors were wooden, polished to the point of glowing. The furniture was made of a wood of a slightly darker color, and the furniture design was unlike anything I had seen before. The only thing in the room that didn't seem entirely otherworldly was a small altar, stacked high with candles. Even that, in and of itself, was not completely normal.

I became aware that there were other presences in the room, other than myself. I turned and saw the Fullmetal Pipsqueak and a young, pretty redhead I was unfamiliar with. The redhead, I made a note of, was looking around, just as dazed as the pipsqueak and myself were. She was the first one to speak.

"Where the hell are we?" she grumbled inwardly. The voice was unfamiliar, the tone, unmistakable.

"Sloth?" I was shocked. I hadn't seen her in the form of a girl for some time.

"No, Envy," she stated dully, "I'm Roy Mustang. Yes, I'm Sloth, you idiot."

She hadn't changed. I was happy, but also somehow disappointed.

"What? I mean, how?" I asked stupidly.

"Some girl thought it would be fun to have the Elric kid here. Instead, she brought out the whole of the population," she said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. I, on the other hand, didn't think what she had said made any sense. I could only think of one question to ask that wouldn't sound completely stupid.

"How do you know all of that?"

She looked at me tiredly, as if she was having to explain this to a child who would never understand, "When we came into this dimension, I took over the girl's body. I have full access to her thoughts and memories."

I was still confused, but I thought it was best to save questions for a better time.

"What the hell are you guys talking about?" the pipsqueak blurted out, "What do you mean there are different dimensions?"

Sloth turned on him, but didn't yell or lash out. She instead proceeded to explain to him that there were different dimensions, and that the beings in this new one we had been dragged into had the ability to open doors between them. That was one question of mine answered. I was a little hurt that she felt it was more worthwhile to explain this to a child rather than myself. The pipsqueak took this information rather well, I thought.

"Wait, you mean so, Al's here too? Where is he? Is he alright? What about Winry? Nothing's happened to them, has it?"

Sloth sighed, "Not as far as I can tell, though I'm not sure Winry's here. Pretty sure she's still in our own dimension."

The pipsqueak left the room, into a hallway and around the corner.

"Wait!" I called after him, "Where are you going?"

"Don't worry about it," Sloth grumbled, "It's not like we can use him as a sacrifice here, anyway."

"But, wait, does that mean Father's not here?"

"I don't know, but there are far greater powers than him here, and they're not on our side."

Now there was something I just couldn't wrap my head around. This had to be some sort of joke, but Sloth didn't show the faintest hint that she was joking. Instead, she turned and followed the pipsqueak out of the room. It was all happening so fast, different dimensions, beings more powerful than Father, Sloth changing form for the first time in decades. I sat down on the floor and held my head in my hands. I was so full of emotion at the moment that I didn't even try to deny them.

* * *

It wasn't as if I had been expecting a big reunion with Sloth, but I hadn't expected her to run off and make friends of her own in the new dimension. I soon discovered that because I was in my original body, no one in the dimension could see me. The same went for all the others, except for Sloth. She, having taken over a body in that dimension, could be seen just fine, and took somewhat of a liking to the body's original best friend. She didn't keep her identity a secret for long, and lucky for her, the friend was also a higher being and had no trouble believing her story. The friend, Aura, as she called herself, seemed to like Sloth as well, from what I could tell.

* * *

I tagged along with them wherever I could, but Sloth didn't pay much attention to me. That is, until she and Aura decided to go swimming. The place where they went was a public pool, and I suppose Sloth had had her fill of being alone. As always, she resorted to me. I had always been an object to her, I knew that. I was something to use and then toss aside, but I always hoped I could change that.

Her friend, being a higher being, didn't find it very difficult to see what was going on. She didn't particularly approve of what we were doing, and decided to take action. That was when I discovered that she could touch me. She kicked me, and sent me flying through the water. The redhead yelped, in a way I knew that Sloth would never do. I looked back, and saw her for the first time. Her name was Tatiana, I knew that much from Sloth and her friend. The movements that she made looked much more natural, as the body was her own. That was the last I saw of her for a while, as Sloth jumped over her and took total control again. I swam back over.

When we got home that day, I went off on my own. I had to think about this one. Sloth and Aura went into the room I had first appeared in, and I went to my favorite room in the house. There was one section of the house that seemed natural. The library contained books of all kinds. I rarely looked at them, as it would be pointless to do so - I couldn't affect anything in that dimension, save Sloth's body, as she was the one who had brought me into the dimension in the first place. The room itself had an energy that Sloth mainly tried to avoid, but I liked it. The room had a hardwood floor, as did all but four rooms in the house, two of which were bathrooms.

However, the majority of the floor was covered in an intricately designed rug, that was soft under my feet. There were several options on where to sit, two reclining chairs, two regular chairs, and a bench in front of the piano. The piano was the main feature in the room, polished wood, an abundance of keys, and gold coated peddles, Grand Piano was certainly the right name for it. I personally wished that I could play it, not that I would've been any good. The seats all seemed rather friendly, but I didn't choose to sit in any of them. Instead, I preferred to sit on the very wide windowsill and look out over the mountains, and the lights at night. In the afternoon, the sun would leak through that window and warm my skin. I loved watching the sunset through that window. It had a strange way of making me feel safe, I feeling I hadn't had since… a long time ago.

Tatiana slowly became more dominant in the body, but showed all of her affection towards the Fullmetal kid, and didn't really care what I did. She made it a point to get Al's body back, although she didn't restore her favorite's arm and leg. She did have a bad habit of letting me come with her, wherever she went. That was why it shocked me so much when she told me that she and Aura were going up to her second house with Fullmetal and his brother, and that I was going to be left behind. I knew that she wouldn't have said that unless she had been pressured to, and I knew that it was Aura's doing. She never really had liked me, and wasn't very tolerant of my presence. I didn't know why, but I had a burning desire for her to approve of me, after all, she was the only person from that world other than Tatiana who could see me.

I was surprised by the news, but not particularly disappointed. I had been on my own before, and I hadn't been much in the way of company where I did go with her. She was obviously intent on the pipsqueak, which somehow made me hate him, rather than simply disliking him. Why, I couldn't place. I was in the library when they left, but when I heard the car start, I ran outside and stared as they left the driveway. Aura didn't see me, or ignored me, either way. Tatiana saw me run out, but looked away as soon as she caught herself making eye contact with me. The car pulled out of the driveway and turned down the road. I ran down the drive into the street and watched until the car disappeared around the corner.

I felt like a band inside me was being stretched as they got further away, but it didn't break. The stretch didn't go away. I had the house to myself that night, which meant I could sleep wherever I wanted to. I would've spent the night in one of the reclining chairs, if it were possible for me to get them to recline.

I couldn't, in any case, so I tried the couch in the living room for comfort. It was soft enough, but the material was scratchy and irritating. The master bedroom was in the back of the house, as I knew, but I had never been in there before. I walked in for the first time, and saw the withered antique furniture, the lightly painted walls, and the huge bed in the center of the room. Needless to say, I tried somewhere else. There was only one other option before I decided to sleep on the pool table. I walked down the hall and stopped at the second door I came to.

I knew this room was forbidden, no one had even had to tell me. It went without saying. I walked through the door.

Tatiana's room was far too girly to match her personality, but nonetheless, I was intrigued. As a habit, I didn't really explore young girls' bedrooms. This was one of the few exceptions. She had a loft bed, and the thing that had the most content was the desk underneath it. There were drawings on it, scattered all over, some of which were most obviously supposed to be of the Elrics. She had a gift for drawing, that was obvious. There was also an incomplete drawing of the Flame Colonel, and one of Father Cornello. Why she had chosen to draw him, I had no idea. There was also a drawing of a small girl with braids hugging a large dog. That was one I didn't recognize. There was also one of Shou Tucker, which made my stomach turn. I made a note that she had never found it worthwhile to draw me, though I wasn't surprised by this. I turned to her dresser, and examined the belongings strewn on the surface of it. She had a jewelry box with one door open and overflowing with necklaces. On top of the jewelry box there was an earring holder, and I noticed that there were several studs on it, although I had only seen her wear the large hanging kind. Her alarm clock had a time set to go off, but I didn't really mind. It wasn't like I could sleep anyway. The alarm would just tell me when the night ended and where the morning began.

I didn't find anything else that would be worth exploring, unless I wanted to get into her personal privacy. I figured I at least owed that to her for treating me in a neutral fashion rather than putting me on the street, as most would've done. I looked up at the railing around the bed and pulled myself onto the bed by using that, ignoring the easier use of the ladder. I was glad that although I couldn't affect things, they could affect me. For instance, I could touch things, and feel their texture, but I couldn't move them without a solid grip on the dimension, which I obviously didn't have.

The bed was a bit surprising to me. It had several pillows on it, though most were for decoration. There was one rather long pillow that reminded me of the kind pregnant women rested their bellies on. The blanket that covered the bed was pink animal print, and one of the softest blankets I had ever felt. The thing that surprised me, however, was that she had clung on to her baby blanket, which was folded neatly at the foot of the bed. I chuckled. She would certainly get mad if I told anyone about that.

I didn't know why lying down at night and closing my eyes seemed necessary to me, but I had always done it, and I wasn't about to stop. I lay my head on the pillows at the head of the bed, and let the softness of them caress my skull. I thought all night, about what living in a new world was like, about how to get Aura to like me, and about the one face I was beginning to trust.

The next morning, the alarm went off at six, and I jumped to the ground. I couldn't believe I was going to have to live an entire day without seeing anyone. I went outside and listened to the birds singing as the sun rose, not coming up with anything better to do. I don't know how long I stood out there, but I soon saw my surroundings changing. I was in a forest, as far as I could tell, and where I was felt a bit off. The band somehow seemed less stretched inside me, like I was closer to whatever was pulling on me. I turned around to look at my surroundings, and noticed that I wasn't as far away from civilization as I'd thought.

There was a large, but obviously old and rustic home on the hill, overlooking a road. I walked closer to the house. There was a window in the side of the house, and I went to look through that. I saw Tatiana's mother, who was incapable of seeing me, so she wasn't much help. Seeing her did bring me some comfort, however. I knew where I was, and I knew that Tatiana was there.

I got closer to the house and reached out to touch the window. The odd thing was, that I couldn't. It wasn't like I was afraid to touch the window. I mean that I literally found myself physically incapable of touching the house. I didn't touch anything like a barrier, my hand just wouldn't go any further. I turned around and reached the same hand out in a different direction, and it extended perfectly. It was definitely the house.

I looked through the window and wondered why I had been brought here, if I couldn't even go inside the house. I sat down on the ground and stared into the window. It was getting dark by the time I saw Aura and Tatiana.

* * *

**Author's Note: Hello, to the one person who is ever going to read this. I really missed this story, so thanks for bringing it back into my life again, Aura.**


	2. Chapter 2

They were sitting down to dinner, at a table that was conveniently placed right in front of the window, so I could watch them eat.

Tatiana saw me, and looked me in the eye, but other than that, did not acknowledge my presence. Aura smiled when she saw me, but most certainly not in a friendly way. She was mocking me for having to sit outside while they ate. Aura and Tatiana's mother were having meatloaf, and Tatiana was having a burger. It wasn't hard to tell why she had turned down the meatloaf, as it looked soggy and undercooked. Her dinner, on the other hand, looked simply delicious. It was then that I realized that I hadn't eaten all day, and I clutched my exposed torso in hunger.

I heard Aura laugh, and I looked up. She pointed me out to Tatiana, in all my shame and misery. Tatiana laughed as well, but hers seemed forced, like she didn't mean it. My feelings did take a small beating at their laughter, but I didn't let it show. After all, feelings were stupid, and letting them get injured was simply foolish.

I waited outside until they had gone through a doorway that led to the other sections of the house. I didn't do much but sit there for a while after that, but I got bored with that rather quickly. I started to try and break the barrier around the house. I didn't have much success, but sometimes persistence was the answer.

I guessed that my attempts to get into the house didn't go unnoticed, as my surroundings began to change again. I was in a small area, covered in dust, and it was overhung by a window that made me feel like I was still outside, although I wasn't. There was a sliding glass door opposite from the window, and I looked through that.

I was looking into the upstairs of Tatiana's house, and at Aura and Tatiana. They would gesture at me occasionally, and Aura would look disgusted. Tatiana would sometimes shrug, as if in agreement to whatever Aura was saying. It was clear she didn't have any real opinion on the matter they spoke of, or simply didn't want to expose her true feelings about the subject.

I was blocked from entering the upstairs room in a similar way to how I had been blocked from entering the house. I didn't try and fight it this time, in any case, for I knew that if I did, I would fail, only causing more laughter in my direction. I observed Aura and Tatiana for a while, and saw the brothers walk into the room. What happened next was rather shameful to them, but very amusing to me.

Tatiana took the Fullmetal kid, and Aura took his brother. The girls looked at each other and nodded, and suddenly ripped their pants from around their wastes, and the brothers stood there, both having completely different reactions to the girls' actions. The younger, yet taller, brother screamed so loud I heard him through the door and scrambled to pull up his pants. The pipsqueak, on the other hand, stood there, proud of what he did not have.

I fell to my knees in laughter; the scene was priceless! I must've rolled on the floor for some time, as by the time I looked up, both of the brothers' pants were on, and Aura was laughing in Tatiana's face. The two of them sat down, and soon, Tatiana was laughing as well. They began to point at me again, and I wondered what they were talking about. At one point, Tatiana looked down for a long time, and shook her head in resolution. Aura shrugged, as if she thought Tatiana's decision was temporary. They talked for a little longer, and then they both looked over at me.

Tatiana stood up and opened the door, looking at me sadly. I tried to walk into the room, but the barrier was still there, despite the open door. I looked back at her, confused at her purpose.

"Aura," she said, closing her eyes and turning her head so that Aura could see her. She looked invigorated and irritated. Aura made a movement with her hand, and the barrier faded. Tatiana backed up so I could walk inside. I stepped into the house, which seemed significantly colder than her house in the valley. That was about all I could deduce before Tatiana spoke again.

"Sorry," she meant it, and said it so quietly that I had to strain to hear her. Needless to say, she hadn't wanted Aura to hear her. She closed her eyes and strained herself in a way I had only seen her do once before. She had made the same face when she had summoned Al's real body from the other side. I felt myself fade, and when I opened my eyes, which took me longer than I care to admit, I saw everything from a different perspective. My location hadn't changed, but my size had. I turned around myself on all eight legs, and looked back at my small green body.

At this, Aura stood up, and lifted me up by my tail. She outright laughed at me, and I had to fight back tears. It wasn't that Aura was laughing at me, though that helped. It was that Tatiana had done this, of her own free will, and that she knew what it meant for me.

I looked away from Aura and at her. She was sitting on the couch, holding her head in her hands. I knew what that meant all too well. Sloth was taking over the body.

When she lifted up her head, her eyes were cold, and they narrowed further when they saw me. In all the years we had known each other, she had never seen me in this form. Aura saw what was going on, and didn't particularly want to be in the wake of what was about to happen. She set me on the bottom bunk and climbed to the top one.

I looked up at her, hoping for the best, expecting the worst. I got the latter.

She picked me up in the same fashion that Aura had held me in, and looked at me closely.

"So this is your true form?" she inquired at last. I blinked in response, not wanting to speak for the voice that this body produced.

She pursed her lips and nodded, closing her eyes. I wished she would say anything, but she just stood there. Suddenly, her eyes flashed open, and she swung me in one direction, then the other, and let go. The feeling in my stomach made me want to be sick. I looked around wildly, looking for anything to grab onto to stop my fall. My tiny legs flailed around me, but I didn't scream. I saw the backboard of the couch getting closer and closer. I closed my eyes and waited for the impact.

It came. All the air was knocked out of me, and I slowly slid down the backboard, until I hit the cushions. The pain came, slowly at first, then it all came rushing into me. My entire right side ached as if a wave had slammed me up against a rock in the sea. I waited for the red sparks to come, but I knew they wouldn't, not while I was in this form, anyway.

This was a kind of pain I had never had to endure for longer than a matter of seconds. I looked up at Sloth, but she wasn't there anymore. Tatiana sat on the table in the center of the room, holding her head, a pained look on her face. She looked up and saw me, and the faintest hint of a smile flitted across her face. She erased it almost instantly. I wanted to smile back at her, but the only emotion that exposed itself was pain, as a tear finally slid down my face.

Tatiana's expression narrowed in a shocked fashion. She sat down on the couch next to me, and put her hands on her temples, trying to remember what Sloth had done. She looked up in a sickeningly dull way, as if she had no life in her. She didn't look anywhere but forward, not at me, not at Aura, not at the Elrics.

"Did she really throw him?" she said in what I would've thought was a bored voice, but the pain in it was so deep it seeped into the walls of the room. She looked up at Aura expectantly. Aura nodded. She bowed her head in understanding.

"I see," she said at last, and turned to me. Her eyes looked into mine, and they didn't stop there. She seemed to be staring into the depths of my soul, if I had one, I wasn't sure. Whatever her voice didn't reveal, her eyes did. She was pleading. Pleading me for forgiveness, if you can believe that. I couldn't speak, I was to shocked to. She understood, and cupped her hands in front of me, so I could climb onto them.

I didn't hesitate, but as soon as I made a move to crawl onto her open palms, I winced in pain. She saw my intentions, and didn't make me give her any further proof. She slid her hands slowly under my body, and raised me up and looked at me, with something in her eyes that I had only seen once before. Her blue-grey eyes seemed as deep as my own mother's had, all those years ago. In that instant, I knew there was nowhere in the world I would rather be than where I was, pain and all. As if in response to my wish, she eased me onto her shoulder and tied her hair in a ponytail to keep it out of my face.

I didn't really pay attention to the rest of the afternoon, save the gentle bounce of Tatiana's shoulders as she walked. I decided while I was in my imperfect form, I should catch up on about 370,506 years of sleep. I was not including my years spent as a human, mind you, though there were scant few of those. I closed my eyes, and was asleep instantly.

When I woke up, I was being tempted off of Tatiana's shoulder, I climbed off it and into her hand with great difficulty, suddenly reminded of the toss I had endured. When I got into her hands, she lowered me onto a very soft cushion of a chair, by a fire. Did life get any better? I didn't think so.

Tatiana knelt down beside me, and looked at me. This time, she actually smiled. It made me warmer than the fire. She closed her eyes, and squinted. When she opened them, she was holding a small leash, with a collar that would fit around my body. I didn't understand her purpose, but I let her slip it over my head. She tied the other end of the leash to the chair. She stood up and walked over to the couch, lifted the fuzzy blanket off it, and draped it over half of my chair, so I had a choice between sleeping in the open or in a little makeshift cave.

I curled up in the corner of the blanket-cave, and closed my eyes. This seemed to satisfy Tatiana, and I heard her footsteps leave the room and go back upstairs. I fell asleep, and dreamed. I hadn't dreamed in a long time, and I had to remind myself that they weren't real. I dreamed about my mom, and the time she had taught me how to weave. I felt everything I had felt at the time, the embarrassment of not learning the men's tasks, the joy of being at my mother's side, and another feeling. Sorrow, that I would never see her again. Then there was my dad, I guess you could count that as a bad dream. That led to the next dream, of the punisher, and the pain he brought. My eyes flew open just before it came.

A voice stopped me from moving or gasping. I peaked out from under the blanket, and saw Tatiana's face, barely visible by the light of the fire. No one else was there, I assumed they were all asleep, and Tatiana seemed to have been talking to me for a long time.

She was kneeling next to me, looking at the ground, talking to me, and assuming I was asleep. I had been for most of what she had to say.

She laughed quietly and forcefully, "I told her, of course, but she couldn't keep it just between the two of us. It was the biggest rumor at the time, and it was mostly rumor. The sick thing was, I needed attention so much that I indulged it. My friends all left me after that, my mom was furious, and my dad didn't do anything at all. I think that was actually the worst part. It was like he had expected that sort of thing from me."

She laughed solemnly again, "Guess he would've been right, huh? You know, Aura asked me to send you back."

I was shocked, I had to admit. I thought it was beyond even Aura to suggest that, and that aside, I thought Tatiana did everything Aura wanted. I thought that if Aura wanted it, it would've happened. Maybe that was why she was down there, to send me back. She didn't do anything to suggest that, though.

"I've got this sick idea that because of all the stuff that's happened to me, my life is worse than anyone else's. Aura's is worse though, no matter how much I lie to her and myself. The worst part of it is, even after all she's been through, she's still the better of the two of us. She knows that as well as I do."

I wanted to yell at her that she was wrong, but I held that much back.

"She gets such better grades than I do, and she says that I suck at English. That's always been my best subject, but she says she's the best in it. If I don't have knowledge to be good at, what should I be good at? I'm not good socially, no one likes me after what happened last year, not to mention it would help if I was pretty."

I snapped.

"You shouldn't even be capable of thinking that, it's so untrue!" I screamed as loud as my tiny vocal cords would let me, "You're the better person, because you let her dream that she is even worthy to kiss your feet! But what's more, you let her control you, and you can't make your own decisions anymore! Look at yourself! You had a perfect record until this year! Aura came back this year! You don't think those two things are related? She pushes you down so she can rise up. You think that's fair?!"

She just looked down sadly, "How long were you awake?"

"Long enough," my voice started to lower. I hoped that I hadn't made her upset.

"You don't know," she said.

"I don't know what?" I was a little put out that she had said that.

"About Aura," she sighed.

"Enlighten me," I challenged. If she was about to hero worship her more, I was going to throw a tantrum, right then and there.

"She's trying. She's trying to change," she looked up into my eyes, "That's more than I'm doing. I'm the same as I always was. She sees what she's doing is wrong and tries to change it."

"Yeah, I do change."

Tatiana spun around and I peaked over her shoulder. Aura was standing in the entryway from the upstairs. Her arms were crossed, and looked like she could've dropkicked Tatiana halfway across the country. I wanted to dropkick her.

"Or at least I think I do. You change too."

I didn't know where she was going with this.

"You probably didn't notice, but I knew you when we were in third grade, and then I moved away for four years. Then I came back. You had changed."

"Not really," Tatiana said shamefully, like she had done something to be embarrassed about.

"You want proof?" Aura said, more calmly than I would've thought, "When we were in elementary school, we were popular, had the most friends, and everyone respected us. They saved the best table for us at lunch."

If what had said was true, Tatiana had changed. No one respected the people who deserved it, not in this world. I had learned that much.

"Then, I came back, and I was sitting with all our old friends, and I didn't know where my best friend had gone. After a while, I asked. They seemed upset by your name, but they told me. You were sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, eating by yourself, and everyone was ignoring you, like you doing that was normal. It was the first day of school, and you sitting in the corner was normal. I couldn't even tell it was you, until I saw that you had red hair. It was really dark, almost brown, and I knew that wasn't your natural hair color."

I didn't know what she was talking about. Her hair seemed light and natural to me.

"It wasn't dyed, either. It was dirty, like you hadn't showered the whole summer," Tatiana winced at this, but Aura kept going, "I called you over to our table, and you looked over at me, like you didn't want to stand up. When you finally did, your legs shook. You walked over to my table, and you just looked at me. You didn't have any color in your face, and your eyes were gray. They didn't have any color in them at all. You looked like something out of a black and white movie."

Aura looked down, and seemed to be fighting back tears. She clenched her teeth.

"You just looked at me, and I realized you didn't know who I was. I told you, and I could see you go back in time, and realize. That was when you changed for a second time. You realized who I was, and you smiled. Ever since then, you've been getting more and more colored. Your cheeks are pink again, and your hair is red again, but your eyes never got all the way back. I don't think I'll ever be able to get back that little girl who wore skirts and tie-dyed t-shirts. If you know how to get her back, please tell me."

Tatiana looked at the ground and bit her lip. She shook violently, but I couldn't tell if she was really shedding tears. It was too dark.

* * *

**Author's Note: Well that was sad. Aura, thanks for slapping some since into Tati, she needed t.**


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up the next morning, realizing the truth of the events of the night. I tried hard to cling onto what I had been dreaming about, but it left me as I tried to recover it. It had been a good dream, and somehow, I wished that I wouldn't have woke, so as to find out how it ended. I looked around, and saw that I was the last person to wake up.

Everyone was watching the television, as I had found out it was called, and the movie seemed to be coming to a happy conclusion. I must have slept in quite a bit, for them to have almost completed a movie. I looked out the window, and saw the sun very near the horizon. Maybe I hadn't slept in as long as thought. Then it occurred to me, that I had slept the whole day. The sun was setting!

I jumped up, afraid of missing more of my life. Tatiana saw me jump, looked at me, then looked back at the TV, but she held up her hand in my direction inconspicuously. There was something different since last night. I picked up on that right away. Aura still wasn't in on it, but Tatiana and I were friends and, for then, that was enough for me.

I stood up, but felt the collar tight around my neck, and looked back at the leash. I had half expected it to be untied from the chair, but it wasn't. Why would I have wanted to move anyway? I settled back down onto the cushion, and watched the family go about their daily lives. Aura was most definitely family; she was far more than a friend. They finished the movie and started talking about what they were going to do for dinner, which confirmed my suspicion that the sun was going down.

Tatiana's mom, Susie, wanted Mexican food, but Tatiana said that she wanted to go down the hill, whatever that meant. They eventually agreed on Tatiana's idea, so I would be able to solve the mystery of what was down the hill.

Tatiana walked over to my chair, and kneeled down beside me.

"Tatiana?" Susie asked, "What're you doing?"

There was always a reminder that I was not visible to the majority of the world. It wasn't a good feeling.

"Nothing," Tatiana answered slowly, "You two go down to the car, I'll meet you down there."

Aura and Susie looked at each other, and eventually walked out onto the porch and down the stairs to the driveway.

Tatiana and I stared at each other for a little while. I could see what Aura meant. Her eyes had hints of blue and grey in them, but for someone her age, they seemed to know far too much. Whatever she had been through must have made her into something far too wise for her own good.

"What?" she asked me, as I realized I had been gazing into her eyes shamelessly.

"Oh," I looked down, and around, "Sorry, I -"

"Don't worry about it," she said, saving me from a very lengthy and awkward explanation. She reached over to where the knot attached me to the chair, and fumbled with it until it came undone.

"What?" I asked, as if to prove something, to whom, I wasn't sure, "You're not leaving me behind?"

"Why would I?" she asked, turning to my collar and undoing the buckle. I thought about giving her a reason, as I could think of plenty, but I didn't. Whatever I had needed to prove, I had.

"Besides," she added as an afterthought, "You haven't eaten since yesterday."

I knew it, but at the moment the hunger wasn't getting to me. I looked down resignedly, not that it had ever been an argument. She lifted me onto her shoulder, and tucked her hair behind her ear, and moved the mass of it to the other side of her neck. When we got outside, Aura and Susie were already in the car, and I realized that we had taken a rather rude amount of time inside.

I soon discovered that there was a small local club at the base of the hill, that specialized in adult drinks and pizza. Susie dove into the drinking, her excuse being that it was a short drive back, and Tatiana and Aura got water. They ordered two small pizzas, one veggie, and one meat-lover's. Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum. I shared the meat-lover's with Tatiana, and Susie and Aura dove for the veggie. Needless to say, there was a lot more of the meat pizza than of the veggie.

While we ate, Aura and Susie tried to master a game that involved sticks jumping over other sticks, which seemed pointless to me. They thought it was worth their time, in any case, so I left them to it. As Tatiana ate, she tried to avoid looking at me, at least not when Aura would notice. However, when Aura seemed particularly absorbed in her stick game, she looked at me, as I nibbled on the pizza and it regenerated as soon as it touched my lips. I had been eating the same bite for the majority of the dinner. She looked down at me, smiling at first, but then her face looked worried.

She reached her hand around me and touched my left side, and slid me so she could see my right side better. She studied it carefully, and shook her head. I looked back myself, and saw what was bothering her. The whole of the right side of my body was a slightly darker shade than the rest of me. It took me a moment to register, but I figured it out eventually. I was bruised from where Sloth had thrown me. It didn't even hurt that much anymore. It only hurt as much as a bruise does, and that wasn't a lot considering some of the pain I had felt in the past.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I shouldn't have let her come out…"

I realized that she blamed herself for what had happened to me, "No! You couldn't have known, and even if you had, how would you have stopped her from coming?"

"I shouldn't have changed you in the first place, then," she insisted.

"You did it for a reason," I told her.

"What reason?" she retorted.

"To prove something, to everyone, including yourself!" I said it. She hadn't wanted to admit that she cared about me at all, that I even mattered in her eyes. She'd wanted to prove it to me, Aura, and herself.

"I don't -" she stopped herself, "I can't… Why you? Why now?"

"Tatiana?" Aura interrupted us, not wanting the conversation to go any farther, "Would you like to go down to the river?"

"Yes," she said almost instantly, and stood up, picked me up onto her shoulder in an unthinking way, and walked for the door, leaving her mom to pay the bill.

Outside, we walked through some tall grass, into a thick forest, and along a route that Tatiana seemed to know well. We eventually reached a river, with mud surrounding it. Even from my high perch on Tatiana's shoulder, I could see that the water was dirty, and discolored. I had never seen anything like that in my old world, what I now know is called pollution.

Tatiana gasped. She knelt down next to the water, and I could see closer that there was something orange growing at the bottom of the water.

"Ew," Aura stated simply, "You dragged me out here for this?"

"I don't understand," Tatiana murmured, "This river used to be fuller, and clear as day. How could all this have happened since the last time I was here?"

"Really?" Aura regarded Tatiana, and I saw something flicker in her eyes, other than herself. Aura then proceeded to try to get to a small island in the center of the river, by way of overhanging trees and branches. She made it to the island, and "decided" to take a swim on the way back. Tatiana, much to my surprise, didn't help her, but let her get soaked through to the skin. The whole thing was source of amusement for me.

When she got out of the water, she looked at Tatiana, and then, she laughed. I had expected her to be angry at her for not helping, but she seemed to think the event was rather funny as well. Tatiana looked at her for as long as she could, and then keeled over laughing herself. I joined them, and it almost felt like a family.

We got home after Susie had paid the bill, and sobered. Tatiana, Aura, and I went upstairs, but Al held his brother back, saying that he needed to talk to him. Aura and Tatiana didn't seem too apposed to this, although a bit surprised.

When we got upstairs, I didn't seem needed in the conversation, but I listened, nonetheless.

"God, I need to take a shower," Aura said, looking at her wet clothes, and sniffing her jacket. I snickered, but Aura didn't hear me.

"Really?" Tatiana teased, "I think you smell better than usual."

"You didn't even smell me," Aura said, not taking the joke. She looked down for a while.

"What's up?" Tatiana asked her, concern riddled in her voice.

"You don't like Ed, do you?" she said. Tatiana seemed as taken aback by this as I did.

"What?" she said, flabbergasted, "Why would you think that? I like him, I mean, I think I do."

"That's not enough," Aura told her.

"I thought I liked him…" She was coming clean. Could it be possible that her feelings for the alchemist had been forced, or even faked?

"What about him?" she didn't give any hint as to who "him" was, but Tatiana knew who she meant.

"I don't know," she said, "There's something different there."

"Tell me this then," Aura tried to simplify the situation, "Do you love him, or do you feel sorry for him?"

Tatiana didn't answer her question, but instead turned to me. She looked at me for a long time, and all I could do was stare back at her, wide-eyed. After a long time of us looking at each other, a tear fell from Tatiana's eye, and she turned away from me. More tears followed, but she was hiding half of them by turning her head to the side.

"I'm not trying to upset you," Aura tried to mend whatever damage she had done.

"You didn't," Tatiana said, her voice steady, despite the tears running down her face, "I'm just so confused…"

"Why?" Aura asked, reminding me of a mental therapist.

"I've never felt like this before," her voice cracked, but she swallowed it down, "He's not even…"

"Kind? Good looking?" Aura offered.

"He's not perfect," she decided. That seemed a lot less offensive than Aura's suggestions. After all, no one was perfect.

"Ed's not perfect either," Aura said matter-of-factly, "He's short, and missing two limbs."

"I didn't mean physically," Tatiana chuckled, "If that was what I meant, I would make up my mind without a second thought."

"In who's favor?" Aura asked.

"The one who's just the right height and has all of their limbs attached."

I smirked in satisfaction. Granted, I wasn't exactly just the right height at the time, but I was still a little proud of myself.

"What did you mean then?" Aura prompted.

"Mentally," Tatiana stated, "Mentally perfect."

"Explain how Ed's mentally perfect," Aura said sarcastically.

"He always makes the right decisions," Tatiana said. She had officially gone crazy. The pipsqueak always makes the right decisions, huh? That was one I hadn't heard.

"Explain how, if he always makes the right decisions, he decided to try and bring someone back from the dead," Aura wasn't asking a question.

"He hasn't killed thousands of people," she was defending him. I hated it.

"I haven't either," I pointed out.

"What about Ishval?" Tatiana asked me.

"I only killed one person," I burst. She had struck a nerve. It had never occurred to me that she knew my past as well as the Elrics'. I could only hope she didn't know about what I had been through before Ishval.

"That's more than she has," Aura pointed at Tatiana.

"Did it ever occur to you that I didn't ever want to kill anybody?!" I shrieked, "I just wanted to grow up with my family, but they didn't give me a choice!"

Aura and Tatiana were staring at me, like I had grown a second head. I hadn't acknowledged that part of me for thousands of years, and it all came back to me.

I jumped off Tatiana's shoulder, onto the bed she was sitting on. My right side ached a little from the jump, but I didn't show it. I hid everything. I looked at anything but the two girls, not sure I could look at either of them without exploding again.

Without any warning, my body faded again. I was back in my sixteen-year-old form. I turned to face Tatiana, but I didn't even get to look at her face before she threw her arms around me and held me.

I didn't move for a while. I was too shocked to. No one had held me like that since I had become a homunculus. After a long time, I hesitated, and then wrapped my arms around her as well. We stayed like that for some time, until Aura coughed.

Tatiana pulled away from me, but kept her hands on my shoulders. She looked at me, and when she did, her eyes were blue. Her smile looked so real, I could tell she was, for a moment, perfectly happy.

"I was wrong," she said, but her expression did not waver.

"What?" I asked.

"About you," she said, "I was wrong about you."

I felt my face get hot, and I turned away, not wanting her to see. Aura giggled at my blush, and I looked at her with any fury I could muster at the time. My face just kept getting hotter, and I stood up and walked over to a corner, and faced the wall. Tatiana and Aura were both giggling then, and I slammed my head against the wall.

"Envy?" Tatiana stopped laughing, but I wasn't feeling aggressive. I turned around with my back in the corner, and slowly slid down until I was sitting on the floor. I rested my elbows on my knees and held my head in my hands. I laughed, and I must have sounded like a madman. At the time, I didn't care.

* * *

**Author's Note: Yay, fluff overload! How'd you like this one, Aura? Better now that you're starting to show your true colors of awesomeness?**


	4. Chapter 4

"What's wrong with me?" I asked no one in particular, but I should have known Aura would answer.

"Long green hair?" she offered, "Cross-dressing? Palm tree complex?"

"Aura…" Tatiana warned, but I could have cared less about what she said about me at the time.

"I'm a homunculus!" I half laughed half cried, not that I let any tears show, "I shouldn't be able to feel like this. I can't even -"

"Yes you can," Tatiana and I looked at Aura as if she was nuts.

"What?" I didn't know what she thought I had meant.

"You're not the same as you were in your own world," she said, "If you wanted to, you could have a family here."

"How do you…"

"I'm a higher being!" she suddenly burst, "To be more specific, I'm a Seer. Meaning, that I can see the truth about anything that comes up in my life. It just so happens that your reproductive capabilities were in that category."

"Wait, how?" I stammered.

"Oh, come on!" she said angrily, "Do I have to spell it out for you? You can control whether or not you get a girl pregnant."

"I can control it?"

"Yes," she calmed down a little, "So in other words, you could be your own form of birth control, as long as you focused on it. Gross!"

"What?!" I got angry, guess I didn't know any other way to react.

"You think I want to know these things?!" she burst, "Or want to be telling you them?!"

"Well, he knows now," Tatiana amended, "So we can drop the subject."

Aura looked into Tatiana's eyes, but eventually lost, "Yeah, fine."

"Good," Tatiana didn't leave room for either of us to add anything, "Then can we go to bed?"

I had forgotten how late it was, as my urge to sleep had vanished when I was turned back into that form.

"Sure," Aura seemed happy at the offer, and left the room.

"She's not going to sleep in here?" I asked, eyeing the three beds available in the room, one of which would have easily fit two people, and the other two which would have comfortably housed one person with room to spread out.

"She and Al like sleeping in the guest room," she said, as if that was normal.

"Wait, she and Al?" that was news to me, "You mean the pipsqueak's brother?"

"Yeah," she told me, "They have a thing for each other, guess that's because May's not here."

"May?" I was a little confused, "You mean that little Xingese brat? What does she have to do with it?"

"She and Al were a thing back in your world," she told me, and I cracked up. The idea of it was too much for me.

"What's up with you?" she asked me, giggling at me a bit.

"He just… didn't seem like the type, and she seemed so young, that's all."

"I thought the same thing," she admitted, "Personally, I think he looks cuter with Aura."

"So they sleep together?" I smiled.

"They sleep in the same bed," she said, rolling her eyes, "But they're way too innocent to do anything."

"What, are they five?" I joked.

"Sure seems like it sometimes," she said, and then she did the funniest high-pitched Al imitation I would ever hear, "Oh no, Brother! Look at all the kitties! I have to hide them all in my armor!"

You know how sometimes you try to hold back a laugh and fail miserably? That's what I did, keeling over in the corner, and occasionally looking up at Tatiana. It didn't take long for her to break either, though I wasn't sure if she was laughing at her own joke, or at my reaction to it.

We laughed there until we were forced to stop, because the pipsqueak walked in.

"What're you doing here?" he eyed me, looking for any excuse to blow his top.

_Wishing I could rip out your teeth one by one_, I thought, but I didn't say it.

"Well?" he was getting on my nerves.

"Guys, just calm down," Tatiana saw a fight coming and didn't let it happen, "Let's just organize the sleeping arrangements, and go to bed."

"Great," said the pipsqueak, "So you and me are in the big bed, and Envy's on the roof."

I snarled at him, but Tatiana moved in between us.

"No," she said, as if she were correcting a two-year-old, "Envy sleeps on the big bed in the middle, because he needs the most room. You sleep in the bed over there, and I sleep in the bed over here."

"But that puts you and me on opposite sides of him!" he said 'him' like it was a curse word.

"And it makes the most sense," she told him, "I have no other motives for the arrangements."

"Then make him sleep on the roof!" he was on the verge of whining, which I really couldn't stand.

"I don't make people sleep on the roof," she said simply.

"He's not a person!" that was it. I jumped over Tatiana with ease, and tackled him onto the floor. He used his automail to his advantage, and I felt my ribs break under his first blow. Red sparks burst to life, healing the wound, but he didn't give it time. He had somehow gotten a hint on how to fight, and continued hitting me in the same place in the same manner. I reached to strangle him, but he suddenly stopped hitting me. He was looking up, seeming to have forgotten all about the fight. I couldn't decide whether to be distracted by the same thing, or use his distraction to my advantage. In any other situation, I would have done the latter, but Tatiana was there, and I couldn't help but look. What I saw, made me forget all about the fight as well.

Standing where Tatiana had been a few seconds earlier, there was a ginger-furred wolf, snarling at us. I pushed Ed away from me, and slowly stood up.

"Tatiana?" I asked slowly. The wolf turned away from the pipsqueak, and eyed me with a blue-grey gaze. It was her. She padded over to me, anger still in her face, but she didn't attack me or anything. Instead, she turned her gaze down to the red sparks around my torso. I gasped, and realized I had to say something.

"It'll be healed in a few seconds," I tried to calm her. She looked closely at the red sparks, and nuzzled the spot where they were concentrated. I hissed air through my teeth, and winced a little. It hurt more than I would admit.

"Got you pretty good, didn't I?" the pipsqueak mocked my pain. Tatiana turned on him, and I almost thought that the look _would_ kill.

"What the hell?!" Aura was standing in the doorway, looking at all of us exasperatedly, "Why on earth did you guys fight?!"

"He was -" Ed and I said at the same time.

"I know!" she shrieked at us, "But you made her phase! Do you have any idea…"

"Why the hell is this taking so long to heal?!" I looked angrily at the red sparks, "Wait, how did we make her change?"

"Which question do you want me to answer first?" she asked. She was really annoyed with us, but I didn't know why. I fought with the pipsqueak all the time.

"Ah! I'll answer both!" she said, like I had taken two hours to answer, "You're not healing because your body's trying to sort out all the splinters you have."

I hadn't thought he had hit me that hard.

"And you made her phase by making her panic. This happens whenever she gets really angry, or scared," she gestured to Tatiana.

"But… Can't she just change back?" the pipsqueak asked.

Aura regarded him, but decided to tell him the answer.

"You guys made her phase, it wasn't a willful thing that she did," she told both of us, "She has to will herself to change back. That change is slow and painful for her. Not to mention, if she changed back now, well…"

She gestured to a pile of ripped clothes, that I recognized as what Tatiana had been wearing. I felt awful. She was going to have to go through something painful, because of me.

"I'm sorry," the words felt weird on my tongue, but I had to say them. Tatiana whined and backed away from me. She then looked up at Aura, and then to me again. I must have looked like a question mark, but Aura seemed to understand. She knelt down beside me, and examined the red sparks.

"Just hold still," she said, and placed her hands on my broken ribcage. I wanted to yell out at her that it hurt, but I wouldn't give the pipsqueak the satisfaction. She slowly pulled her hands away, and the red sparks faded. I prodded my side carefully. It felt fine. I stood up, and looked at her.

"Don't look so grateful," she told me, "She was the one who wanted me to heal you in the first place."

I shrugged, glad that I didn't have to thank her. I turned to Tatiana, but Aura had other plans.

"You two stay here," she ordered, "Tatiana, come on. Let's get this over with."

The two of them left the room, and turned down the hallway, leaving me and the pipsqueak staring after them.

"Why does she care about you?" he asked finally.

"Is that all you can think about right now?!" I turned on him, "We did this, and that's all you care about?!"

"Why do you care about her?!" he challenged me. I was about to respond, but a sad and pitiful howl from across the house stopped me. I heard the howl slowly becoming more and more like a human scream. I climbed onto the bed that Tatiana had chosen for me, and laid my face in the pillows.

Whatever doubt I had faded, I was definitely going to hell. How could anyone heaven bound cause so much pain for so many people? If there was a God, he would not forgive me for this.

When the howl sounded completely human, it ceased. I bared my teeth, not letting any other emotion show, despite the pillow covering my face. I heard footsteps entering the room, but I didn't look up. The footsteps stopped, and I heard Tatiana's voice.

"Aura, what -"

"He thinks he's been damned to hell," Aura said, not letting her finish. Her stupid all knowing thing was getting really annoying. I heard the pipsqueak laugh.

"It took him that long to figure that out?" he said scornfully.

"Are you trying to start another fight?" Aura said, with so much force that the pipsqueak didn't make another sound for long time.

"Envy…" Tatiana said, and it felt like poison, that someone like her could care that much about someone like me.

"Just go away," I muttered into the pillow. There was a long silence, and then more footsteps. I heard the bed to my right creak, as someone climbed onto it. After a pause, I heard a similar but somewhat louder noise to my left.

"Are you guys going to be okay long enough for me to get some sleep?" Aura asked, a lot more seriously than I would have expected.

"We're fine, Aura," Tatiana said slowly, "Go to bed."

I heard a light switch being flicked, and then more footsteps getting farther and father away. Not too long after, I heard snoring from my left. Definitely the pipsqueak. I didn't hear any similar sound to my right, but she might have been asleep, too. I flipped over, so Tatiana was now to my left, and the pipsqueak to my right. I stared into the blackness, as it was to dark to see anything at all. I felt something wet slide down my face, and I wiped it away as soon as I felt it. It wasn't fair, I didn't do stuff like that.

I heard the bed that Tatiana was in creak, stop, then creak again. Maybe she had rolled over? That idea was classified as wrong when I felt my own bed move. I held my breath, not sure what she was doing. I hadn't bothered to get under the covers, but she moved them out from under me, threw them over me, and then climbed under them herself.

I felt my face get so hot that I was sure it was on fire. She curled up against me, and wrapped her arms around my neck. She rested her head on my chest, and fell asleep.

_So Aura and Al are the innocent ones?_ I smiled.

"Envy…" she muttered. Was she… dreaming about me? Maybe she wasn't as innocent as I thought. I gently touched her face, and she didn't seem to notice. I slowly tucked a bit of loose hair behind her ear. My eyes were starting to adjust to the dark, and I could see her shut eyes, her full cheeks, and her closed lips. I couldn't help but smile. She really was beautiful. I lightly outlined her face, until she stirred a little, and I removed my hand. I wrapped my arms around her, and held her as close as I dared.

Neither of us moved until morning, when Tatiana woke up. She made a small noise, and stretched. She rolled onto her back, and opened her eyes. She stared at the ceiling, and laughed quietly, once.

"You're really messing me up, aren't you?" she smiled.

I chuckled, "I think you've got that backwards."

"You think you're the messed up one?" she turned onto her side to face me, and smiled.

"Let me know if there is any evidence to suggest otherwise," I smirked.

"Remind me when something comes up," she joked. She threw the covers off of her, and stood up, throwing her arms up in the air and stretching again. Her shirt rose up a little, exposing her flat stomach, and I caught myself staring. I looked away, a little too fast to be inconspicuous.

"What?" she raised an eyebrow, "Don't act like you've never seen anything before."

"No, it's not that…" I felt my face getting hot again. She didn't respond, so I looked up at her again. She was looking at the ground, blushing, maybe even more than I was.

"Come on," she said, looking up at me timidly, "We should go downstairs."

"Um…" I didn't exactly know how to do this right.

"Yes," she said, but I didn't know if she knew what she was answering.

"Yes, what?" I inquired, slowly standing up.

"Yes, you can kiss me," she looked shy, but determined at the same time. It hit me like a load of bricks. I had waited as long as I possibly could have, and I wasn't about to wait any longer.

* * *

**Author's Note: Yay! And so the romance continues. Well Aura, get ready, because, well, wait, you already know.**


	5. Chapter 5

She slowly backed up against the wall, and I moved in front of her. I placed my hands on the wall, on either side of her head.

"Are you sure about this?" I smirked.

"Do you care?" she looked at me mockingly.

"Not at all," I leaned. My lips met hers, and we crushed down on each other. I forced her hard against the wall, with the sheer force of my tongue. We were at war with each other, but we were both fighting for the same thing. After what seemed like an eternity, we came up for air.

I let my hands slide off the wall, and I opened my eyes. She was staring back at me, and her eyes were sparkling. She blushed again.

"We should probably go downstairs," she said, "Before he wakes up."

I turned to the snoring figure of Ed, who seemed to be sleeping quite peacefully. I scowled at him. How on earth could someone so messed up be the hero of the people? I guessed all humans were messed up. But then… I looked at Tatiana. Was she a human, despite the bit of hybrid? If she was, I couldn't say anything bad anymore about humans as a whole.

"Yeah," I said after a while, "Sure."

We got downstairs, and Tatiana's mother had gone out to get pastries, as the note she had left explained. Tatiana put the note back on the table, and turned to me.

"Do you want to watch a movie or something?"

"Or something," I muttered under my breath.

"What?" she leaned closer.

"Um, yeah. A movie sounds fine."

She smirked at me, but turned around and looked through the movies. She eventually decided on something, and stuck it in the player. She plopped down on the couch, and patted the spot next to her. I sat down, and she cuddled up against me. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, and she rested her hand on my chest.

The movie had barely started when I heard footsteps on the stairs. I made a move to sit on the other end of the couch, but Tatiana pulled me back.

"What if it's the alchemist?" I tried not to use my nickname around her, but the words really sounded weird on my tongue.

"It's Aura," she assured me.

"How do you know?" I asked. She pointed to her nose, and I remembered.

"Oh yeah," I smiled, "Being a wolf must come in handy sometimes."

She shrugged, "Some more than others."

Aura walked into the living room, and she eyed us.

"And yet you still won't admit it?" she raised an eyebrow at Tatiana. Tatiana shook her head.

"Nope."

"What about you?" Aura turned her gaze to me.

"What?" I didn't really enjoy her company.

"Will you admit you're in love?" she smirked at me. Well my eyes got as big as plates.

"I - er - what?" I sputtered.

Aura couldn't have laughed harder.

"What?!" I yelled, recovering my cool. She just continued to laugh.

Soon, her laughter attracted attention. The Elrics came downstairs, and Al was rubbing his eyes.

"What's so funny?" the pipsqueak eyed my arm, and I quickly removed it from Tatiana's shoulders. Al snickered. He wasn't half bad, when I thought about it. How he and his older brother could be so different was beyond me.

"Hey," I raised my eyebrows, coming up with a great button to push, "How's Winry these days?"

Ed made a dive for me, but Aura jumped in front of him. She rolled him over, so he was under her, and punched him hard across the face. She then turned around, and glared at me, standing up.

"Did you two not learn anything from what happened yesterday?" she glared from me to Ed, "Yeah, we all know that you guys have some great insults to throw at each other, but could you just save them?"

I growled at Ed, and he glared daggers into me. I suddenly realized that he was not going to be the first one to resign. I told myself that I was doing it Tatiana, and that if she wasn't around, I'd fight with him all I wanted. I looked down resignedly, fire still in my eyes. I heard Ed "humph" and Aura spoke again.

"Good, now what movie are you watching?"

We all sat down and finished the film in silence. It commenced to explain two lovers separated by their families' hate for each other, and that in the end, they both died.

"Thoughts?" Tatiana asked us all in general.

"That," I said slowly, "Was depressing."

"I don't think so," she said contradictingly.

"Oh, yeah?" I raised my eyebrows, "What else do you call two people separated by social differences and then dying, then?"

"I call it them going to the only place they could be together forever in."

"What makes you think they went?" I raised my eyebrows higher.

"They were in true love," she stated simply, "They went."

I had my doubts, but I didn't voice them. Could sin prevail over love? I didn't know, and I knew if I thought too hard about it, I would get a headache.

Tatiana's mom walked in the door, then, holding loads of bags and wrappings.

Aura jumped up, "Oh score!"

"I've got to say, Mom," Tatiana walked over, "You've really outdone yourself this time."

"I didn't exactly prove my worth through pizza and bad meatloaf," she joked.

"Well consider your worth proven," I said, even though she couldn't hear me.

We dined ravenously, and then thought it best if we got a move on, as the girls had school the next day. They packed, while Ed, Al, and I were sent to search for any forgotten or hidden belongings that we could point out. Susie said she was going to start putting the bags into the car, and that Aura and Tatiana could check the house one more time. Aura plopped down on the couch, saying that they'd already triple-checked the house, and Tatiana dragged me upstairs.

"Want to prove our insanity once more?" she asked of me.

"Absolutely," and our lips met.

I wasn't scared this time, and I didn't hold back. I held her waist, and pulled her against me. I felt her hand on the back of my neck, pulling as well. It took me a little while to notice that there was music playing from behind me. I didn't want to stop, but I hesitated. Tatiana pulled away slowly. I didn't open my eyes at first, but finally I looked towards the music.

Aura was standing in the doorway, holding her laptop. The song "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid was blaring from her itunes account.

I would have been embarrassed if it had been almost anyone else, but as it was, I felt anger boiling up in my blood.

"Oh," she acted suddenly surprised, "Did you guys want to be alone?"

Tatiana spoke before I could, "What, you didn't expect as much?"

I was liking her more and more. Aura's smirk, however, didn't fade, but she made a rather elegant bow and left the room.

"That doesn't get on your nerves?" I asked Tatiana.

"Only all the time," I was startled.

"Then why is she your best friend?" I raised an eyebrow.

"She's not all bad," she said, "And at least she doesn't know everything."

"What doesn't she know?" I was actually curious as to what the great seer of all things was in the dark about.

"Her own future," she told me, "And love."

I raised my other eyebrow. She sure seemed to know about it a lot of the time.

"Let me rephrase that," she thought, "She can't see how love will turn out. She doesn't know who is right for you, or who you'll end up with."

"But when we're up here making out?" I smirked.

"Yeah, she knows about that."

I chuckled, "We should go down to the car."

"Yeah, about that…" she looked guilty.

"What?" I eyed her curiously.

"We don't have enough seats to fit you, Aura, Edward, Al, Mom, and myself," she listed off people on her fingers, "So, we need to make a compromise."

"Hmm…" I thought sarcastically, "How about, I get shotgun, and Ed's on the roof?"

"Or…"

"What?"

* * *

I sat on Tatiana's shoulder in my small green form moments later, staring at the pipsqueak who had gotten shotgun. Susie was driving, and Al sat in between Tatiana and Aura.

"Don't look so pouty," Tatiana whispered to me.

I made a face at her, which was easy to do in that form. She kissed me lightly on top of the head.

"Ew," said Aura, looking out the window.

"Go on, it's not that big of a deal," Tatiana rolled her eyes.

Aura took on a very sarcastic tone, "Hmm, what was that noise I heard? It sounded like a very wet and slobbery kiss."

Wet and slobbery? She sure did know how to use hyperbole to its extreme. I rolled my eyes.

We were in the car for a while, and to my surprise, as soon as we got home, Tatiana went to bed. I was a little shocked by that, but not too much. Maybe she was just tired. I went into the library, to stay out of the way. I was a little surprised when someone joined me.

"Hey, uh, Envy?" I heard Al's voice. He stepped into the room and looked at me rather timidly.

"Yeah?" I asked, "What's up?"

"I know you hate my brother…" he started.

"Yeah, what about that?" I raised my eyebrow, "Look, if you're in here to try and make me his friend, you can forget it."

"No, I just wanted to tell you that he's just being a jerk to you because he needs someone to take it out on," Al said suddenly.

"Take what out on?" I eyed him.

"He's not where he would like to be," Al looked at his feet, "He misses Winry, and he was trying to replace her."

"With Tatiana," I smirked.

"Yeah, well, I don't think you're as bad as everyone says you are," he said, "I don't think the other homunculi are either. For all I know, in the end, you guys might fight on our side."

"Don't count on it," I turned my gaze out the window.

"Tatiana will fight on our side," he added.

"It's not me that I'm worried about," I said, "The others won't take as kindly to the idea of fighting on the side of humans, trust me."

"I thought you hated us more than the rest of them," he eyed me.

I decided to tell him, "No, I don't. I use that as a cover to hide that I want to be one of you."

"Wait, what?" he sputtered.

"It is what my name means, isn't it?" I waited for him to figure it out.

"You're jealous of humans?" he slowly realized, "You envy us."

He left the room, and I stared out the window until it got dark. When the sun rose the next day, Tatiana came out of her room, rubbing her eyes.

"Is this one of your disappearing days?" I asked her. She did leave the house really early sometimes.

"Yeah," she said slowly, "Would you like to come along?"

I had always wondered where Tatiana would be going on a regular basis that was too secretive to bring even Ed, but I had never thought to go with her, no matter how curious I was about the place. Now, here she was, offering me an opportunity I had been waiting for, without a second thought. The car ride didn't take us anywhere particularly odd. We went by a route through town, a very populated area. She didn't say anything the whole ride, probably because her mom was in the car. We arrived at a complex of large buildings, which all seemed pretty regular to me. Susie brought the car to a stop and didn't move. Tatiana climbed out and held the door open for me for a ridiculously long time, and shut the door. Her mom drove off the way we had come, and we were left standing there. I expected her to move, but instead, she spoke.

"Do you know why we're here?" she asked me blankly, not making eye contact.

"No," I said honestly and plainly.

She turned to me and said the last thing I expected to hear, "I was born with a deformity on the inside of my leg."

* * *

**Author's Note: Oh, because we definitely needed more drama. Well, Aura is awesome in this chapter. Yes, the readers are supposed to like her. She's a total badass, admit it. Boys, bis, lesbians, admit you'd date her.**


	6. Chapter 6

She waited for me to respond, but I didn't.

"I didn't walk properly as a child, and I had to use a cane for the majority of my life," she looked away from me again, and stared at the cars on the highway, "No one ever knew what was wrong with me, I wouldn't tell them. My parents said it gave me character. I was of a different opinion, in any case, and I did something about it. I wanted to see someone, to fix it. No matter who I went to, they always turned me down, said there wasn't anything they could do about it. This was the last place we were going to try, before we gave up. They said they could never make it go away, but they said they could allow me to use it properly if I was willing to make regular visits. So here I am, almost a year later, still trying to stand on my own two feet."

I couldn't say anything, what could I have said? She looked at me anyway, with her piercing blue-grey eyes, holding my gaze, and I knew I had to say something.

"I didn't know," I managed, and it didn't feel like enough. There wasn't anything else I could think of to tell her, but I knew I should've said more.

She saved me from talking at random, by going on with her explanation, "I was able to walk again before Aura came back, and she never knew why I used the cane when we were little. She's never had occasion to think about it, or wonder about it yet. She knows most things about me, but not that."

She paused, "We should head inside."

With that, she turned away from the highway and turned the corner of the building nearest to us. I followed her around, and saw her disappearing into a door with white letters painted on the glass. I didn't bother to read the sign, and hurried in after her.

* * *

On the car ride back, my mind was reeling. The people who worked there made Tatiana work harder than I had ever seen her work before. The balancing exercises didn't look that hard, but she didn't have the greatest balance on her left leg, which I had never noticed before.

The car ride home was interrupted by a stop to get smoothies, which I thought had to be the best I had ever tasted.

We got home about midday, and the pipsqueak proceeded to beg Tatiana to tell him what she had been doing. I felt something come over me, like this little spark of need, and I moved in between him and Tatiana.

"It's none of your business anyway," I glared at him. He looked up at me and finally, resigned.

"Fine," he looked down, or rather straight ahead, "Why should I want to know anyway?"

He stormed off in the direction of the game room, and left me standing with my back to Tatiana.

* * *

The next day was the start of Tatiana's last week of school before summer. She had finals, all of which I probably would have failed, save the Writing one, but she got remarkably high scores on all of them. Before I knew it, the weekend came, with summer directly to follow.

As always, Tatiana and Aura were having a sleepover, but this one was a little weird. Firstly, the sleepover was at Aura's house, which was weird enough in itself.

They almost always slept over at Tatiana's house, but Aura had insisted. When we got there, we discovered that Aura had set up sleeping arrangements in the guest room, not in her room, which was quite possible.

"Why am I sleeping in here?" Tatiana inquired, eyeing the large bed in the center of the room.

"Trust me, you don't want to be sleeping in the same room as me tonight," Aura said, a mix of amusement and disgust in her voice, "Besides, it's on the opposite side of the house as my grandparents."

Tatiana and I looked like question marks, but Aura seemed to understand her reasoning.

"Come on," she said, "We can play in my room until my grandparents are both asleep and it's dark."

That's exactly what they did. Their play consisted mainly of board games, and the Wii. I kept score, and was really getting angry that I had to keep informing Aura that she was winning at Battleship, although she already knew it quite well.

After a very intense game of Pictureka, Aura peaked outside her door.

"Okay, they're asleep," she whispered.

"Um, should we…" Tatiana gestured in the direction of the guest room.

"Yes," Aura told her quietly.

"Good," I said slowly, "I was getting sick of you cheating anyway."

"I wasn't cheating," she insisted.

I wanted to make a face at her, but I didn't. Instead, I walked out of the room, and turned down the hall. Tatiana pushed the door open, and we stared at the bed in the center of the room. Why had Aura wanted us to spend the night in there? I had a theory, but it seemed way off.

Tatiana walked over to her suitcase, and unzipped the main compartment. She reached in, but stopped, turned around, and eyed me. She turned her finger around slowly, in a spinning motion. The message was clear: turn around, or I'll kill you.

I snickered a bit, but I obeyed. I faced the door while she changed, forcing myself with great difficulty not to peek.

"Okay," she said. I turned around, and she was already under the covers.

I raised an eyebrow, "Were you cold?"

"Aura helped me pack," she told me, "She didn't really pick out my pajamas for warmth or comfort."

My lips twitched, but I didn't laugh, "What did she think we were going to do tonight?"

"Trust me, if I knew what goes through her head, I'd tell you," she rolled her eyes.

"Hmm," I thought to myself, and sat down on the floor.

"Oh, come on," she sounded exasperated, "Since when are you shy?"

"I'm not!" I defended, "I just thought -"

"Don't be a wimp," she cut me off.

"Don't get on my nerves."

"You really don't have much practice with girls, do you?"

"Hey!" I didn't care if Aura came in screaming at me to keep it down. She had struck a nerve. I was okay with girls, sort of. Maybe. I climbed up onto the bed, and timidly laid down next to her, on top of the covers, but still.

"What do you want to talk about?" she asked me.

"I don't know," I really wanted to know what she had been saying that one night before I'd woken up, but I didn't think I should ask.

"What did you mean?" she asked me suddenly.

"What did I mean by what?"

"When you said that they didn't give you a choice to live with your family?"

I stiffened. I didn't want to tell her. She probably would've felt the same way if I asked her about her past.

"I'll tell you if you tell me," I said, not letting her be the only mysterious one.

"What would I have to tell you?" she asked blankly.

"What you were telling me that one night, when we were up at your second house."

"Alright, I'll tell you."

I had to admit I was surprised. I had expected her to drop it, but I wasn't about to drop out of the deal.

"When I was in seventh grade, my best friend's boyfriend raped me," she was just full of surprises, "I told my best friend, but she couldn't just dump him and leave it at that. She spread it as a rumor throughout the school, and my social life was ruined."

"I know how you feel," I said.

"You had a bad social life?" she asked.

"Well, even to this day, I wouldn't consider myself the most popular guy in the world," I laughed halfheartedly, "But no, I didn't have a good social life. Even as a human."

"When you were a human?" she asked me, clearly wanting to get to the point.

"Yeah," I didn't really want to talk about it, but I'd made a deal, "I wasn't exactly the perfect son, shall we say."

She scooted closer to me under the covers, ready for a bedtime story. I sighed. I couldn't say no to her.

"I grew up in a small river tribe, before anyone you know other than Sloth, Pride, and Gluttony were existent. I guess you could blame everything that went wrong with my childhood on my dad. He was what you might call the really sucky chief of our tribe. He always said how he'd wanted a strong child, one who could be the next chief, and how I didn't cut it."

"You seem like you would cut it," Tatiana said slowly.

"Yeah, well my original body didn't. That's why I like this body better."

"What was wrong with your first body?" She raised an eyebrow.

I really didn't want to tell her this part, "I was what you might call… vertically challenged?"

"That's why you're so hard on Ed?" I was surprised she hadn't laughed at me.

"He's just so perfect, even with his little height issue. I couldn't have done any of the stuff he does when I was a human. I don't want him to have that to use against me."

"Yeah," she said, "I get it. Keep going."

I sighed, "Well, he was always trying to get me to be what he wanted, but he didn't think fatherly love was the way to do it if you will."

She just looked at me confusedly.

"He had the punisher try to get me to be what he wanted," more confused staring, "The punisher is the person who brings discipline, as they called it. You guys have a better word for it now."

I smirked at her confused look, "Torture through electrocution."

She gasped as realization came into her eyes.

"Well, as you would expect, I got tired of that after a while. I was twelve when I ran away. The only reason I hadn't left sooner was because of my mom."

"Your mom?" she asked me. My heart ached.

"Yeah," I said, voice as steady as I could make it, "She was the one who took care of me, loved me, nursed me back to health when I was hurt. Or, well, you know."

"Tortured," she finished.

"Yeah, well anyway, I ran away, and I bumped into Sloth in the woods. As a twelve year old, I was turned into a homunculus."

I thought that was all I needed to say. I wasn't keeping my cool very well anyway.

"What aren't you telling me?" she asked slowly, and looked into my eyes, "You can talk to me, I promise. I won't tell anyone."

I sighed, "Okay. It was after I was a homunculus. I was probably about forty, not body-wise, but you know. Sloth said I could see my mother. I hadn't seen her since I had run away."

I was going to choke, I knew it.

"She said I could see her, but she couldn't see me. When we got there, we came in through the roof, and hid in the rafters," my voice quavered a bit, "When I saw her, I didn't really understand. She was lying in a bed, and…"

I started to cry, I couldn't help it. I rolled onto my side, not letting Tatiana see my face. It wasn't the kind of crying where tears just fall, either. It was full out bawling within a few seconds. I felt her hand on my shoulder.

"Hey, it's okay," she said to me gently.

"No it's not!" I burst, "My mom died in front of my eyes, and I didn't even get to say goodbye!"

* * *

**Author's Note: Well, this chapter always makes me want to cry. Aura, I'm sad. We must cry together now. This is depressing.**


	7. Chapter 7

I felt like I wasn't getting enough air in my system, I couldn't through my tears. My throat felt like it was blocked. I just sobbed there for a few seconds, as I hadn't done for far too long. Once I could breathe, I rolled over onto my back again and stared at the ceiling.

I felt Tatiana wiping the tears off my cheeks, but I didn't look at her.

"When was the last time you even let yourself think about that?" she asked me gently, "How long have you been bottling that inside?"

"Who cares?" my voice still wasn't anything near steady.

"I do," she said, and I looked at her, "I don't know when the last time was that someone cared about you, but that was a mistake on their part, not yours."

I didn't know how she knew exactly how to make me feel better. I was still in pain, but the wound had healed considerably.

"Are you going to be okay?" she brushed a bit of hair out my face, and gazed at me, blue eyed once again.

"As long as you don't leave," I told her.

"Aw, but I was going to go to sleep," she teased me, and rolled onto her side and closed her eyes.

"I'll tickle you," I threatened honestly.

"You wouldn't," she opened one eye to test me.

"Want to bet?" I climbed over her, and flexed my fingers threateningly. Her other eye flashed open, and that was all the time I gave her. I ran my finger along her sides, and yes I admit it, not just to tickle her. She tried to threaten me though her laughter, but it came out like gibberish. I finally stopped, after we probably had cried an equal amount that day. She didn't stop laughing, but this was nothing but laughing at the situation. I joined her.

I laughed, "Oh my God, I love you."

I stopped laughing immediately. Maybe I hadn't actually said that. I was dreaming. If I stabbed myself with a fork, I would wake up in my little green form and nothing would have happened. No, that was reality, I could tell. I almost denied it, but I didn't want to say that to Tatiana, and then, it dawned on me. If I denied it, I would be lying.

"Envy," she said slowly, looking down, her blush obvious, "That's actually… really sweet, I - I guess I feel the same way…"

My eyes got seriously wide. How was that even possible? She hadn't actually said the words, but still.

"Oh," she said exasperatedly, "Screw pride, dignity, and arrogance, they're all part of a sin, right?"

"Yeah, I've met him," I wondered what she could be getting at.

"Oh, I can't lie to myself anymore, or to you," she threw her arms around my neck before I even realized she was going to move at all.

"What's going on with you?" I hugged her back.

"Just don't tell anyone I said this," she said quietly.

"I promise I won't," I laughed at her.

"I love you," she said back to me, and somehow managed to make it not sound corny. She pulled away from me, and gazed into my eyes. We reacted at the same time, not being able to resist it any longer. We reached for each other, met in the middle, and I'm pretty sure we didn't go to sleep until six in the morning.

* * *

At about seven in the morning, Aura slammed the door open, and walked inside. I was torn between screaming at her to get out so I could put some clothes on, despite the sheet that covered anything I needed to hide from her, or telling her to keep it down, as Tatiana needed to sleep. I chose the latter.

"Would you be quiet?" I hissed at her, "She's only been asleep for an hour."

"First of all, I know," she hissed back, "And second of all, ew."

She knelt down next to Tatiana, and shook her shoulder lightly.

"Tati, get up," she said gently.

"Go away," Tatiana mumbled into her pillow, and pulled the covers over her head. I snickered at her.

Aura raised her voice by about a hundred levels, "Tatiana, get up now or I will personally make sure that Envy is never capable of what he did last night ever again!"

"I'm up," she sat up holding the covers over her chest. I outright laughed at that.

"He slipped, you know," she told her, as if it was obvious what on earth she meant.

"Huh?" Tatiana and I said in unison. Aura reached for the covers around Tatiana's stomach, and naturally, Tatiana recoiled.

"I'm not going to take off the covers," she said boredly. Tatiana was still stiff, but she didn't move this time. Aura laid her hand on Tatiana's stomach through the covers, careful not to be rough. It dawned on me in a very slow realization fashion, and my eyes slowly bugged farther out of my head.

"Wait, you're not saying…" I had to be misreading what was right in front of my face, I had to be.

"Yes, I am," she turned to me seriously, "You didn't focus at all, did you?"

"Well sorry if there was no one to teach me how to control something I've never had before!" I screamed at her.

"Okay, what right do you guys have to be screaming at each other?" Tatiana said angrily, "I'm the pregnant teen who wasn't even supposed to like this guy!"

"Yes you were," Aura said dazedly, "You're doing everything right to have the future that you want to have."

"What?" I said stupidly.

"She does that sometimes," Tatiana waved it aside, "But, what are we going to do?"

"What do you mean?" I was a little confused.

"Do you even know how inter-dimensional pregnancy works?" she asked me, not being mean, but being honest.

"Not a clue," I said truthfully.

"The distance between the two dimensions causes a speed up by about eight or nine times faster than normal pregnancy."

"Wait, we've only got a month?" now I was the one freaking out.

"Yeah, but it won't show up, or I won't be showing, not unless you somehow got brought all the way into this dimension."

"Can that happen?" I asked her.

"Yes, but if it did, you would never be able to go back to your own dimension," she explained. It made sense. I couldn't come up with a good reason why I would want to go back, but I knew that she had more than just me in mind. The others probably wouldn't take as kindly to never going back to Amestris.

I suddenly realized that I was being a total and complete moron. I had to say something. No, I had to do something. How on earth could I make any of the stress go away? It suddenly dawned on me - there was only one way to make this right, and it wasn't even a sacrifice for me. In fact, it probably would be good for me in the long run. I wanted time to think it over, but I didn't more than a few seconds. All pros and no cons for me, and she could always say no.

"Tatiana?" I asked slowly.

"What?" she sensed something in my tone, and she didn't waste a moment in letting me get to the point.

"I should've done this smoother," I said slowly, "But now I've got a deadline, and I'm not sure how to do this."

"Just spit it out," Aura said, but I ignored her.

"Tatiana, I'm asking you to marry me."

* * *

**Author's Note: Well, cliffhanger. Aura, you were awesome in this chapter.**


	8. Chapter 8

"I'll have to think about it, you know?" her eyes were as big as alien spacecrafts, but her shock didn't show through in her voice.

"Oh!" I gasped, realizing that it might have been a possible yes, "Take all the time you need!"

Aura snickered.

"Aura…" Tatiana said, annoyed by her friend.

"No, it's just that he's so thrilled that you said you'd think about it!" she was starting to annoy me too, "That has got to be the most desperate thing I have ever seen!"

That made me more than pissed, but didn't really feel like a fight.

"He's not joking," Tatiana eyed her.

"I know, but still."

My cheeks were getting hot; that was embarrassing.

"I think you should leave," I said suddenly, not sure how she would react to that.

"Really?" she stopped laughing but still smiled.

"Really," I said, and I was surprised when my voice came out strong and firm. She looked at me, and I was more than satisfied when her smirk disappeared. She stood up and left the room.

A week passed after my victory over Aura. I began to accompany Tatiana regularly to her doctor's visits, and it turned out that what she had said was true. She didn't show, although according to her, she was already a third of the way through her pregnancy.

It was a normal day, as it started out. Tatiana and I walked into the doctor's office, and I smiled at the doctors, although they couldn't see it. I had grown to be grateful to them for what they did for her. They were friends of mine, even if I wasn't one of theirs. She did her regular exercises, and seemed fine. Then, it happened.

She moved on to her balance exercises, and started those off like usual. She did what she usually did, and the exercises included a balance board, an energy ball, and a stepping stool. The balance board went without event, and the stool served its purpose well. As far as I could tell, the energy ball would pass uneventfully as well. I was not as smart as I thought I was.

The exercise done on the energy ball consisted of her standing on top of it, and trying not to loose her balance. She had always been good at that, so I had no reason to worry.

The doctor helped her onto the ball, and she started off balancing just fine. She even made a comment on its level of difficulty, which she implied was minor. However, she had not been on the ball for long, when she gasped quietly, clutched at her torso, and lost her balance.

The ball slid out from under her as she fell backwards, not making any noise until she hit the ground, and even then, the noise did not come from her mouth. Despite the fact that it came from deep within her body, I heard the crack clearly. A tear slid down her cheek, but she didn't cry out or scream. She didn't even move. She just lay there, sickeningly still. She spoke then, so quietly I could barely hear the one word she squeezed out of her mouth.

"Sloth," she breathed. That was unexpected. I hadn't seen Sloth since she had thrown me at Tatiana's second house. I had nearly forgotten that she still lived inside Tatiana. I realized what was going on seconds later, when Tatiana's body surrounded itself with red sparks. She had asked Sloth to heal her.

It had taken my body a few seconds to respond, but I was soon kneeling next to her. The red sparks slowly ceased, and she began to breathe heavily. I sighed in relief, but I was still worried about her.

"She'll be okay," I jerked my head up, and saw Sloth kneeling on Tatiana's other side. She was in her original form, the female one.

"Sloth?" I asked, but turned my attention back to Tatiana, "How did that happen?"

"She thought this might happen, so she planned ahead," she said, looking intently at Tatiana.

"Tell me," I said, not looking up at her, "What _did_ happen?"

"Who are you?!" a doctor from behind us screamed, and I turned around. I stared at him for a while, before I realized he was staring back.

"Wait," I said slowly, "Can you see me?"

"Yes!" he burst, "Now how did you do that? You just… appeared out of thin air!"

"Sloth," I said, "What happened?"

"She broke her spine," I winced at that, but she kept going, "And the only way she could fix it before it was too late, was to make me a reality in this dimension, along with everyone else."

"She did that?" I gasped.

"Yes, but she had to give up any hope of sending us back to our own dimension."

"Yeah, she told me," I said, "So everyone in this dimension can see everyone from ours, am I right?"

"Yes," she told me, "And don't look so worried. She's just exhausted from the Philosopher's Stone. Humans don't usually have to go through that. She's probably better off now than she ever has been before, anyway."

"Why's that?" I asked her.

"I healed her spine, and her leg."

"Thank you," I said, not really feeling very grateful to her, but I still owed her that much. Tatiana was fully recovered, and more than that, within a few minutes. Sloth ran off, leaving me and Tatiana to explain to the doctors how I had come to be in that world. I was amazed when they believed our story, without question. One of the doctors noticed her bloated stomach before I did, but when my attention was brought to it, she looked about three months into a pregnancy.

Let me tell you, it was a chore explaining it all to her parents. When two people got into the car, rather than one, one of them having a rather odd appearance and the other one pregnant, Susie almost passed out. After we explained it to her, though, she seemed to think that it made sense. When we got home, Susie explained it to her dad, which was probably the best way to do it, and he said that he needed to be excused.

We went into Tatiana's room, then, and I kicked up my feet to think about the whole thing. People could see me. I was in as much shock as her parents, although probably not in the same fashion. Tatiana started going through the drawers of her desk. After a while, I looked over at her, and saw that she was looking through her yearbook. She flipped through the pages, and then stopped, and stared at one of them.

"What is it?" I asked her.

"Keygan," she said, "My er… best friend's boyfriend?"

I knew who she meant. I got up and sat on the floor next to her, and looked at the picture. He had icy blue eyes, and his smile looked fake, if not a bit evil.

"Keygan, huh?" I asked at last, "I, um, I don't like him."

She laughed, "I was pretty sure you wouldn't."

She slammed the book closed. She dropped it back in her drawer, and looked at me intently.

"What would heaven be like for you?" she asked randomly.

"Uh…" it was actually a good question, "I don't know. What would it be like for you?"

"Hmm…" she said, making a thoughtful face, "I'd want to go somewhere where there was lots of soft grass, and rivers, and a beach."

"That sounds nice," I thought about it. I would like to live there with her.

"And, there would be a tree house that I could live in," she added, "And you'd live there, too."

"I was just thinking that," I admitted.

I told her to go off and help the others, what with their new visibility and all, and I went off on my own. I thought about what I should do, and then it dawned on me. I didn't have a penny to my name. I tried to think of a job that I could do, but I was drawing a blank. I had no certification, no college experience, and come to think of it, I didn't even have a birth certificate. I walked outside, not even knowing where to start.

"Envy!" I heard someone call from behind me. I turned and saw Susie running down the drive after me.

"Yeah?" I wondered what she wanted.

"Do you need anything?" she asked me.

"What do you mean?" I looked at her curiously.

"Like, do you need a ride, or something?" she asked me.

"I can drive…" I told her.

"Legally?" she asked me, raising an eyebrow.

"Well…" I thought about it. A license under an alias from another world probably wouldn't cut it here.

"Just let me know if there's anything I can do for you," she added.

"Okay," I said, stunned by her kindness, "I will."

She turned around and walked back into the house, and closed the front door behind her. I thought about it. There was a store with a help wanted sign just a few blocks down, but I didn't know what the requirements were. I figured it was worth a shot.

When I got there, they asked me if a had any past job experience, and all of that stuff. I gave them honest answers, and they said they'd get back to me. Well, at least the job didn't require college experience. I might have been able to swing it. I walked back to the house, and when I got there, I saw Susie pulling out of the driveway.

She stopped the car when she saw me, and actually got out.

"Envy?" I looked at her.

I faced her, curious as to what she wanted, "Yeah?"

"I knew something had changed, as soon as you came, even if I couldn't see you."

I didn't know how to respond to that, so she kept going.

"Tatiana hadn't been that happy for years, and I couldn't imagine what the reason was. When it turned out that she'd been in love the whole time, I was happy too. Happy for her, and for you. I know you don't have any money…"

"What, are you going to give me a loan to take her on a date?" I laughed.

"No, not exactly," she answered my joke with a serious response.

"What then?" I wondered out loud.

"You two are going to get married, I've accepted that."

Had Tatiana told her?

"The fact that you don't have any money, leads me to believe that you can't exactly afford a ring."

"Well, I was trying to get a job…" I admitted.

"I thought I'd save you the trouble," she said simply, and pulled a small white box from her pocket. I took the box, and opened it. Inside there was a thin band, sticking out of the padding that surrounded the inside of the box. The band was gold, and inlaid into the gold there was a single large diamond.

"No, I can't…" I started to say.

She held up her hand, sporting her own wedding ring. If the ring wasn't her own, then who's was it?

"That ring was the one my first husband gave me," she told me. I hadn't known she had had another husband.

"He was wonderful, but he died when he was very young," she explained to me.

I felt a sudden sympathy towards Susie, after all, hadn't I had to witness someone I loved dying and outliving them?

"I'm sorry," I told her.

"Don't be," she said, "It all led to where I am now, and I don't regret my past. You keep that."

I looked down at the ring. I really would have loved to give something like that to Tatiana.

"Give it to her the traditional way," she added, "She loves that sort of stuff."

I stood there for a while, and then nodded. I pocketed the box.

"Thank you," I had never meant something more. She smiled and nodded to me, and climbed back into the car and drove off.

I opened the door like owned the place, and called out into the house. No one answered at first, so I tried again, louder this time.

"Hello?" I yelled, "Tatiana?"

"Help!" her voice cried out. She was in the back room, and I sprinted. Was she joking, or was she really in trouble?

When I got back there, I nearly screamed as well. Rather than one, there were two people. One of them was Tatiana, and the other I had only seen in a picture. I knew him at once. I had etched his face into my brain. Keygan.

Even more disturbing, was what he was doing. She was being pushed up against the pool table, and he was in the process of undressing her, threatening her with a knife to make her cooperate.

I took all this is within a second, and in the next second, he was on the floor. I used every ounce of superhuman strength that had been given to me, plus the power of my adrenaline rush.

First blow, he spit out several teeth. Second blow, his leg was crushed. Third blow, his rib cage caved. Fourth blow, permanent paralysis. Fifth blow, out the window he had come in through.

* * *

**Author's Note: Yep, he's pissed. Keygan gonna get it, man! Well, he kind of already did...**


	9. Chapter 9

I fumed there for a moment, but I turned to Tatiana. She had already pulled her shirt back on, and she was curled up on the floor. Her hysterical sobbing came in gasps, like she couldn't breathe.

I knelt down next to her and helped her to sit upright. I pulled her against me, and she hissed air in through her sobs. I felt something wet on my shirt, and I pulled her away from me.

A red stain was forming on her shirt, on her chest.

"He hurt you?" I asked as calmly as I could, though that wasn't very calm. She nodded three times, and continued to weep, in pain, I realized. I reached to examine the cut, but she backed away from me, a terrified look in her eyes. She was scared of me. I wanted to jump out the window after that bastard, but no. he deserved to live with what I had given him.

"Tatiana," I said slowly, "It's me. I'm not going to hurt you. I would never hurt you."

She looked at me, reminding me of a terrified animal, but nodded after a while. I edged closer to her again, and removed her shirt. She had three cuts, obviously made by a sharp blade. One was on her chest, the other two on the lower part of her bloated stomach, and disappearing under her pants.

"That sick…" I could barely hold in a scream. My blood was boiling. I heard the doorbell ring once, and then I heard the door open and close. Footsteps pounded in our direction, fast and loud on the wood floors of the house.

Aura burst into the room, panting.

"I came as fast as I could," she gasped, "What can I do?"

"Get a doctor, and the cops," I added as an afterthought.

The cops arrived shortly after the ambulance, and didn't really do much good, as far as I could tell. I climbed into the ambulance shortly after they arrived, and helped the doctors to load her into it. She was placed in the center of the car, and was soon surrounded by doctors trying hard to stop the bleeding. I'd seen blood a lot in the past, but it had never bothered me like that.

"Hey kid," said a doctor, and I almost didn't realize he was talking to me, "You gonna be sick?"

"No," I assured him.

"Then could you hold her hand?" he asked me.

"What?" I wasn't sure what the point was.

"If you do that, it'll make her feel a whole lot better than anything we can do for the moment."

Her hand was crusted in blood too, but I held it.

"Tatiana," I said to her, "You're okay, you're going to be okay."

"She'll be an emergency case, so we'll get her taken care of right away, don't you worry."

"Thank you," I told him. We got there faster than I would've thought possible, but as soon as we did, she was rushed down a hall, and I had to wait.

The doctor from the ambulance walked over to me, and held out a box of wipes, and I realized I had blood all over my hands. I took one, and cleared away the last trace of crimson. I threw it out, and sat in a waiting chair.

"She'll be brought to her own room after she wakes up," he told me, "Would you like me to take you there now?"

I looked at him closely for the first time, and noticed the utter concern written over his unshaven yet friendly face.

I nodded and he motioned for me to follow him. We walked down the hall, went up an elevator, and down two more halls, and stopped at a door. He let me in, and asked if I needed anything. I told him I was fine and went to sit in the chair next to the empty hospital bed. After he had left, I waited. The sky outside the window slowly got dark, and I amused myself by watching the stars come out. I was almost certain I could see every star in the universe by the time the door opened.

I whirled around and watched the nurse wheel her up to the side of the bed and help her onto it. The nurse nodded to me and instructed me to push a little red button on a remote if either of us needed anything. I agreed, and she left. I didn't say anything.

"Envy?" she asked after a while.

"What?" I sat down in the chair next to her.

"Are you mad at me?"

"No," I laughed.

"Okay," she relaxed.

"How are you feeling?" I asked her seriously.

"Like I just got seventy-two stitches," she told me.

"I wonder why," I pretended not to be as shocked by the large number as I actually was. I guessed for three cuts that wasn't really that bad.

We spent the next two nights there, she got her food for free, and the first doctor gave me loans to buy stuff from the cafeteria once he found out I was broke. I owed him way more than would ever be able to pay him back for, but he didn't seem to mind, even when I told him so. We were released after the two nights, with strict instructions on how to change the bandages. I was about to walk out the door, when Tatiana's main surgeon stopped me.

"I was just curious," he said to me.

"Yeah?" I said slowly, "What about?"

"Who's Envy?" he asked me.

I put my hand on the back of my neck, "Er… That's my nickname."

"Oh," he nodded in understanding.

"How did you know?" I asked him.

"That was the only word she would say while she was under," he explained.

I smiled, "Yeah, she does that."

We got home, and spent the next week in happiness. I was so thrilled that Susie still allowed me to stay at their house, though she seemed like the type to do that. She even let me sleep in Tatiana's room, she figured we'd done worse than sleep in the same bed. I still remember the first night we spent together up in her loft-bed. She had tossed and turned, not being able to fall asleep, but after I wrapped my arms around her, she had drifted into sleep within seconds.

One day, shortly before the birth of our child, we were sitting together in her Japanese garden. There was a swing, the kind that seats two people, and a creek flowing through the flowers. She called it the Philosophy Garden, but I didn't really think it looked different than the Japanese gardens I'd seen in pictures. I still had the ring, but I was suddenly nervous to present it. I looked around though, and didn't think I could find a better time and place to do it. "Do it the traditional way" huh?

"Hey, uh, Tatiana?" I asked timidly.

"Yeah?" she looked at me, "What is it?"

My face was getting hot, but I ignored it, "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," she said to me.

I stood up, leaving her on the swing. She stopped rocking it and looked at me. I sighed. I had to do it. I looked her in the eyes, and got down on one knee.

"Look," said to her, "I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, and the older I got I just kept adding to the list. But - ever since I met you, I haven't added to it. And, I always thought the bigger the list got, the more unhappy I'd be, but the list is bigger than it ever has been, and I've never been happier than I am with you."

Her eyes were blue as I pulled the ring out and held the closed box in front of her, "And, I don't want that to go away. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I don't want to start in a few years, either. I want to be able to spend forever with you so…"

I opened the box, "Will you marry me?"

A tear of pure joy slid down her cheek, "Envy how did you?"

"It was the ring that your Mom's first husband gave her. She gave it to me, and she wouldn't take it back," I smiled at her.

"Yeah, that sounds like her," she wiped the tear off her cheek, "Oh, God, yes! A hundred thousand times yes!"

"I love you," I embraced her, getting back up on the swing.

"Really?" she asked me.

"Yes, really!" I said, astonished that she even had to ask.

"That was the only reason I didn't say yes the first time," she told me, "Because I wasn't sure."

"Tatiana," I said to her, pulling away and gazing into her eyes, "I loved you from the moment I heard your name."

She smiled, but I wasn't done. I'd been waiting to pour this out to her, and wasn't going to stop.

"I love how you hold things with two hands, even if they would fit easily into one. I love how you bend your knees rather than lower your hands to open the garbage can. I love how you can't stop talking if you're unloading the dishwasher. I love how you snuggle up against me when you're asleep. I love how we always have mock fights about who has to climb down the ladder in the morning first, me or you. I love how you're always careful to make the spines of books facing the wind so the pages don't get blown open. I love how you know how to make every day the best one ever. I love how you geometrically check if the umbrella will blow away or not. I love how you look at nature the way other girls look at clothes or jewelry. I love how when there's a really romantic moment, you bite your lip so you won't say anything too revealing. I love how you'll laugh at my jokes no matter who's in the room. I love how you complain about how comfortable your clothes are, rather than how cute. I love how when I brush the hair out of your face, you look down before you make eye contact. I love how you think that you're not good enough for me, when it's the total and complete opposite. I love how you try to avoid wearing heels so you have to look up at me rather than be on my eyelevel. I love how you panic about someone watching us when no one's there, and you don't care if we're in a room full of people. I love how you worry about your appearance at bedtime more than in the morning. I love how naturally your hand fits in mine. I love how you use me as a pillow some nights. I love how you say my name in your sleep but refuse to admit you were dreaming about me. I love how if I'm just lying down you won't fall asleep, but as soon as I wrap my arms around you, you're out. I love how you know just as much as I do, even though I've been alive far longer. I love how you care about me in a way that no one's ever cared about me in centuries. I love how you refuse to believe me when I tell you that you look beautiful. I love how the only thing you don't know is how special you are. I love how you sing to me when you need to get something out. I love how you stick out your tongue when someone jokingly insults you. I love how you can't stand the sound of a nail file. I love that you bury your face in my chest when I hug you, so as to hide the fact that you're smiling. I love how you've perfected your pouty face. I love how you don't beat around the bush and get straight to the point. I love how when I do something you like, you tell me so I'll do it more often. I love how you say patience is a virtue, but can never wait for Jessica's grandparents to go to bed. I love how you cried when you were temped to say that you loved me, and how it took me crying for you to finally admit it. I love how you think that there's no point in being embarrassed around me anymore. I love how you always know when it's the right time for a sappy moment. I love how you're the best thing that has or ever will happen to me."

"Okay," she laughed, "Now I believe you."

I hugged her again, and held her there, not wanting to ever let go. But, things don't always go as planned…

Tatiana gasped once, and pulled away from me, a very particular look on her face.

"Tatiana?" I asked her slowly, "What is it?"

"Let's just not have one of the freaking-out-oh-my-God-the baby's-here moments, okay?" she said hoarsely.

"Oh my God," I really wanted to have one of those moments right then and there.

"Just get me inside," she groaned. I had to admit, in 370,518 years, I had never gotten much practice with helping someone to give birth.

I picked her up bridal style, and carried her into the house. The couch didn't seem very appropriate, so I carried her to her parents' bedroom. Susie was out shopping, and Tatiana's dad, Jim, was up at their second house. Aura would come, I knew, but I didn't know how much good she could do.

She has healing abilities, I reminded myself. I still didn't feel very confidante. Tatiana's face looked suddenly more strained, and then, there was a flash of white light next to me. When the light faded, I saw a girl, blonde, with very long hair, and a stunned look on her face. I recognized her, but I wasn't sure where from. I was pretty sure I hadn't met her in person, or had I? it suddenly all came back to me. She had been one of the people who had confined me in a jar up north. Wasn't she with the pipsqueak?

I turned to Tatiana, "Why'd you bring her?"

"I wouldn't rather have anyone else help with this," she told me.

"Er… Winry, right?" I asked her.

"Yes?" she turned to me, "Hey, you look familiar. I know I've seen your eyes before…"

"Yeah, I was that half-dead homunculus you kept in a jar," I reminded her bitterly. Her eyes widened a bit, but she didn't freak out. Instead, she eyed Tatiana, and gasped.

"That's why you're here," I told her, "We don't have that many options right now, and word on the street is that you're good at this."

"Well," she said slowly, "I've delivered a baby before…"

"Then do it again!" I was getting impatient.

"Okay," she said suddenly, and I was shocked, I had to admit. She proceeded to ask Tatiana where she kept her disinfectants, a large tub for hot water, and fresh towels. She answered her, and Winry ran out of the room. Tatiana screamed loudly. I felt so useless! Then I remembered what the doctor had told me in the ambulance. I held her hand in both of mine, and spoke to her softly.

"Tatiana, don't worry. Everything will be fine," I told her.

I heard Aura come in, and gasp. She and Winry had a conversation, while I just held Tatiana's hand, not sure what to do as her screams got louder.

"I could use a little bit of help in here!" I yelled out the door. Aura came running in holding several towels with various bottles stacked on top, and was followed by Winry, who was carrying a large basin full of steaming water. There were several phases of screaming, from everyone in the room, and at one point Ed walked in and fainted. I couldn't help but be a little satisfied that he was entirely disregarded on the couch while the rest of us worried about Tatiana. I stared intently at her face the whole time, not daring to look down. Suddenly, everything went still, and I knew it was over. Everything was silent, save the noises the Aura and Winry made at the foot of the bed. I still didn't look. I was scared, scared that if I looked away from her for a second, she would slip away from me.

* * *

**Author's Note: So, are you excited to meet the newest member of our colorful cast? Well, be excited!**


	10. Chapter 10

"Envy?" she asked me, sounding more exhausted than I had ever seen anyone, "Help me to sit up."

I did so, and she opened her eyes tentatively, and I felt Winry next to me.

"Girl," she told her simply, and handed her a small bundle of blanket.

"So, Envy," Aura said, sitting down on Tatiana's other side, "You still have to prove that you have a y-chromosome."

I shot her the meanest look I could, but it wasn't very mean, and it didn't last long before I looked back at the little bundle.

Tatiana had tears running down her face, but it wasn't like she was crying. I wanted to see, but all I saw was the blanket around the baby, or, as it turned out, her. She kissed the little girl, but I still couldn't see. I moved on my seat impatiently. Winry elbowed my side lightly, and I looked at her. She nodded towards them, and I took it as good advice. I sat down on the edge of the bed, next to Tatiana and the little bundle. Tatiana shifted the child so I could see her, and I saw.

I looked into her big blue-purple eyes, and I felt my world do a back flip. She wasn't crying, like most babies do, but she just staring around wide eyed, looking up at her mother. Her stare shifted, and she looked at me. She was a perfect mix between myself and Tatiana, with black hair, obviously acquired from my true, human form, and Tatiana's face, and a mix between our eyes. She stared at me for a long time, and then, she smiled. Even without teeth, it was the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. It hit me: I was a dad, and my daughter liked me. She actually liked me! I let my eyes pour, I didn't care who saw.

Tatiana offered her to me, and I held her in my arms. In that moment, I promised myself that I would never be like either of my fathers before me. I would make her life so much better than mine, I knew that I could. I would let her be who she wanted to be, and I would encourage her no matter what she decided in the end.

My train of thoughts was interrupted by Aura's dazed voice.

"Father knows," she said blankly, "He knows and he wants revenge."

We stared at her as she spoke.

"He's been left behind by one of his children, and he wants revenge," she shook her head as she snapped out of it.

"Aura, what did you see?" Tatiana looked terrified.

"He wanted children all along, but he couldn't have any," she told us, "That's why he had the other homunculi call him Father."

It made sense when I thought about it.

"He's mad because you passed him in the race for perfection," she eyed me.

"Because I had a child," I nodded in understanding, "What's he going to do?"

"That's the weirdest part, I can't see," we all gasped.

"Wait, what's pi to the eighth decimal?" Tatiana asked her, testing if it was just this that she couldn't see, or if her vision was totally obstructed.

"3.1415926," she said simply. Okay, one question answered, or two, if I thought about it.

"Do you know how much time we have?" I spun around and saw that Ed had come to.

"I think he'll let us know," she said slowly, "From what I know about him."

"He's likely to lie in wait before anything major happens," I added.

"Well, if it's not an immediate threat…" Ed looked down.

"What is it?" asked Winry.

He turned to me, much to my surprise, and even more surprising, was that his face looked… friendly.

"I…" he looked at the ground, and back up at me, "Can I hold her?"

Everyone looked at him like he had just swam over an ocean. Metaphorically speaking, he had.

Tatiana nudged me, and I turned to her. She nodded.

I approached him with caution, wondering if it was a trick. I didn't feel very comfortable letting him hold my newborn child. I was almost going to pull away when he reached out for her, and lifted her out of my arms. I backed away a bit, but I didn't feel like getting too far away from her.

"You know," he said after looking at her for a while, "For being half idiot, she's actually pretty special."

Oh, come on! How could I hate him after he said that?

"So," he said, turning to Aura, "There's no immediate danger from, er, Father?"

Aura nodded, "All we can do is hope for the best for now."

And that's what we did. For the rest of the summer, and part of the next school year, until we slipped into November. I kept careful watch on Tatiana's calendar, not letting the sixteenth slip by me. I didn't really want to change my birthday traditions, as I had gotten so used to them. I had had a lot of birthdays, after all. I really didn't know if I should have even remembered my birthday as a homunculus, much less celebrated it. I went to bed with Tatiana on the fifteenth, intending to leave before she woke up. The weird thing was, she said in the middle of the night that she wanted to get some water, and didn't come back for a long while. I wondered if Lillian had woken up, so I climbed down to check. I looked at the clock, and saw that it was a little after midnight. Maybe she'd passed out on the floor?

I got into the living room, and saw a light flickering from the dining hall. It was pretty small, not enough to be the chandelier. It was big enough to notice from the living room in any case, so I went to check it out. I turned the corner, and I saw the first glance of what was in the room, but not enough to draw any conclusions, before I heard multiple voices speaking all at once.

"Surprise!" I heard several voices shout, but I couldn't see anyone, it was far to dark. I rolled my eyes at the sky. This was a little eccentric, as far as my standards were. I fumbled in the dark for a light switch, and I found it.

The room with light looked like a really classic birthday party, with cake, streamers, and a banner. I was a little confused. I hadn't told anyone about my birthday.

"How did -" it dawned on me, and I turned my eyes to Aura, "You?"

"Me," she assured me. I rolled my eyes.

"I thought, seeing as you've never really had a proper birthday," Tatiana looked at the floor for a moment, "Well, better late than never, right?"

I smiled a little, and then turned my attention to first light source. There were candles burning on a cake, but really caught my attention was the number of candles. It seemed completely irrelevant.

"Why six candles?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

Aura chuckled, "One for each digit in your age."

My face got hot, I couldn't help it. I hadn't told anyone how old I was, but judging by the banner that spelled out "Happy 370,519th", they already knew.

"I know you wanted to spend your birthday on your own," said Aura slowly, "But, a decent birthday is part of what makes a person. You have not lived until you've had a proper birthday."

I rolled my eyes again. Maybe she had a point.

"Look," Aura added carefully, "Everyone's here, in the middle of the night, to make you have the best birthday of your extremely long life. We even got you presents, just hear us out."

"Since when are you my best friend?" I asked her, confused by her weird behavior.

"I'm not," she assured me, "I'm part of your family though, so I have to be a part of this."

I eyed her, "Why are the rest of you here?"

"I like to consider myself one of your friends," Al said tentatively from behind Aura.

"I'm here because I live here," Jim added with a small and semi-forced smile.

"I'm here because I think you've changed," Winry said sleepily.

"I already think of you as part of the family," Susie smiled in a very not-forced way.

"I'm here because there's cake," Ed added, smiling in a joking manner.

"I'm here to give you the gift of a better fashion sense," Aura added, although she really didn't need to.

I wasn't quite coming to terms with all of it. I thought that they might be joking, but common sense told me that Tatiana and Al were too nice to play along if it was a joke.

"Okay, then where are these presents you're talking about?" I thought it was the best way to test my theory.

"Hiding with the VIPs," Aura said simply.

"Would someone please elaborate?" I looked around the room.

Tatiana spoke, not telling me much more than I already knew, "We figured you'd like to spend that time in your room of choice."

She knew me way too well. I rolled my eyes, and turned and walked towards the library. I heard the others following behind me, but I ignored them. I peaked into the library, and saw that all the lights were out, but there were three glowing pairs of red eyes in the darkness. It would've scared most people, but not me. My eyes did that in the dark too.

I dove for the light switch, and shed a little light on the situation.

In the room, I saw three of my fellow homunculi, two smirking, and one staring blankly at a wall.

"Well, look. It's the birthday boy," Lust said monotony.

"Some homunculus," said the one I recognized from our one meeting as the new Greed, "You shouldn't fall for humans and celebrate your birthday if you're immortal."

"It's nice to see you too," I retorted.

"Well, I got to say," he said smirking, "You definitely look better without thousands of heads and six legs."

"No one likes you," said Aura from behind me. I heard Ed cough in disagreement.

"No one in their right mind likes you," she said. I snickered.

"Can I eat them now?" Gluttony asked Lust.

"No, it's his birthday, you can't eat his friends," Lust smirked at me.

"Why'd you guys come if you hate me now?" I glared at them.

"I've always hated you," Greed said.

"You didn't answer my question," I really wanted to hurt him.

"Well, Ed and I get along on equal terms, and I heard there'd be girls," he concluded.

"They're all taken," Aura said poisonously.

"Bet they'll change their minds," he shrugged.

"Bet they won't," said Tatiana coming to stand by my side.

"What about you?" I turned to Lust, "I thought you hated humans."

"I thought you did too," she challenged me.

"Things can change," I could never figure her out.

"Well, I always knew you snuck out on this day each year," she smirked at me, "And it's the first time I've been invited."

Well, that was all I was going to get, and I knew better than to pry with her.

I looked away from them, and my eyes were quickly drawn to the bright colors of wrapping paper. The pile of presents wasn't huge, but it was more presents I had gotten throughout my entire lifetime. Actually, until that day, I had never gotten a present. Tatiana put a hand on my shoulder.

"Are these all for me?" I asked skeptically.

"Yep," she assured me, "And I have no intention of saving wrapping paper, so tear and rip all you want."

I eyed her, and she nodded. I looked back at the presents, and approached the pile. I got down on my knees in front of them, and it seemed like some sort of trigger had been pulled. Everyone surrounded me, and I was hammered with requests as to which present to open first. I smiled at the odd feeling of joy that everyone was acting like they cared about me. Aura eventually shoved her present into my hands, and I was sure to handle it carefully while opening it, for fear that it might have been a bomb. It wasn't, and I was only half-surprised by that.

She'd gotten me clothes, which I really should've seen coming. As far as clothes went though, these actually weren't half bad. It was a white v-neck t-shirt, and black skinny jeans. I shrugged in response. The other presents were all pretty basic, save what Tatiana and Al had gotten me, and the presents from the homunculi.

Lust had gotten me a dagger, which was actually pretty cool looking, but I didn't say so. Gluttony didn't get me anything, by which I wasn't surprised, and Greed had given me ashes from one of the times he'd had his limbs cut off, to save money. Tatiana and Al worked together on their present for me, and it turned out to be a small, black kitten.

"Why?" I eyed them, holding the little kitten in my arms.

"You can't say you don't love that face," Al insisted. I looked down at her, and I had to admit, her whiskers were kind of cute.

"I'll help you take care of her," Tatiana urged me.

Everyone was staring at me, and I finally caved, "Oh, alright!"

Tatiana and Al cheered. Aura applauded. The kitten yawned and closed its eyes.

"Is cuteness contagious?" I asked, eyeing the kitten, who was slowly falling asleep in my arms.

"You contaminated the kitty!" Tatiana mocked.

I laughed lightly, and handed Al the kitten, "Hey, Tatiana?"

"Yeah," she smiled at me, and I felt my heart swell.

"Well, it's my birthday," I had never thought I would get to use that excuse, "There's something I want."


	11. Chapter 11

"What?" she looked like she would've jumped off a cliff if I'd asked her to.

"I want to leave," I said simply, "And I want you to come with me."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I want to leave, and not come back until my birthday's over. I'd like to spend this time with you," I tried to sound like I wasn't being corny, but it was what I wanted.

"Right now?" she asked me, not as if she was going to reject the idea, but as if she needed to know if she needed to get out of her pajamas.

"Yes," I insisted. She stood up, and without another word, she left the room.

"Envy," Al said slowly, "It's only two in the morning."

"She doesn't mind," Aura assured him, "It's not like she was going back to sleep anyway."

Tatiana came back out into the library, in her jeans and a jacket.

"Hey, Envy," Aura added before we could leave, "It's the middle of the night in November. If you walk out there in that, everyone will think you're even more insane than you already are for wearing it at all."

With that, she tossed me the white t-shirt and black jeans, and eyed me in a menacing way. I went to Tatiana's room to change. The shirt fit perfectly, if not a little tight. It was more modest than what I usually wore, but it still didn't leave much to be desired. The jeans, I had to admit, looked really good on me. I'd have to thank her one day, but not today.

I walked out of Tatiana's room, and Tatiana was standing right outside the door, and greeted me with a whistle. I rolled my eyes.

"You ready to go?" she asked me.

"By my standards, I was ready a long time ago," I smiled.

She turned around, taking that for a yes, and headed for the front door. I followed right behind her. We didn't look into the library as we left, and walked onto the street. Our breath turned into fog as we breathed, and Tatiana's cheeks got pink with cold in a matter of minutes. I walked at a brisk pace, trying to keep her as warm as possible until we got to the town. I saw that the coffee shop had it's lights on, so I walked in, and pulled Tatiana against my side rubbing her arms with my hands, making sure she wasn't going to turn into a walking popsicle.

"You going to fall over and crack into a bunch of tiny pieces?" I smiled at her.

"No," she half laughed half chattered.

I led her to a table, and looked around the shop. The woman behind the counter was asleep in a chair, and a sign was on the counter in front of her. It read:

_For service, yell pizza._

At least some people had a sense of humor that didn't involve insulting me. I was half tempted to just make some hot cocoa behind the counter, and not telling her, but it didn't feel right anymore. I knew that a year before I wouldn't have hesitated to do it. It was the first time I had noticed just how much I'd changed. I shrugged to myself, and shook her hand. She stirred a bit, but didn't wake up. I sighed, and thought it might be funny.

"Pizza!" I screamed at her, and she woke with start.

"Where?" she said suddenly, and I snickered at the fact that it had actually worked.

"Nowhere, your dreams are forever crushed," I said sarcastically.

"Oh," she said stupidly.

"Do you work here?" I asked her slowly.

"Um, yes," she answered me even slower.

"I don't know if you are mentally capable of doing this, but I would seriously like it if you would make a cup of hot chocolate."

"Do you have money?" she grumbled.

"I have a fist," I responded.

"Envy," Tatiana said from behind me, "I brought cash."

I put my hand on the back of my neck and sighed at the ceiling.

"Yes, we have money," I groaned.

"I'll get right on that," she gave me a body check, "Sir."

I growled under my breath.

"She likes it with whipped cream and cinnamon on top," I snapped at her.

"Well, that's nice for her," she retorted. I heard Tatiana laughing behind me. I turned around and made a face at her.

She made cute puppy dog eyes at me, like I was actually mad at her. I smiled, I couldn't help it. I walked over to sit by her.

"She's a piece of work," I glanced at the woman out of the corner of my eye, and then looked back at Tatiana.

"She was nice until you threatened her," Tatiana smiled and raised an eyebrow.

"She was stupid the whole time," I grumbled. She giggled at me.

"Hey!" the lady shouted over the counter, "Do you want this or not?"

I got back up, walked over to her, and took the hot chocolate. Tatiana walked up next to me and slid two dollars across the counter. The woman smiled at her, and then glared at me.

"Thank you," I said smiling, and returned the body check, "Miss."

Her lip curled in disgust. The feeling was mutual. Tatiana pulled me away from our death stare contest. We slid back into our seats, and Tatiana and I stared at each other for about two seconds before we burst out laughing.

Tatiana leaned over the table, trying to hold her laughter in and whispered as best she could, "I thought she was going to stab you when you acted like you didn't know she was a girl."

"She burned me pretty good too, I got to admit," I shrugged.

"Oh, good," Tatiana said with mock thoughtfulness, "I wasn't sure you knew."

I gave her a light shove on the shoulder, and we just sat there laughing. When she finished her drink, she looked deep into the bottom of her cup and frowned sadly. She did that for a very long time, her expression getting sadder and sadder, until she couldn't hold it any longer, and cracked up again.

"Time to go?" she asked me. I shrugged. She sighed and stood up.

"Where too, birthday boy?" she asked tiredly.

I snickered at her nickname for me, "Um, I don't know, not much is open at two in the morning."

"The park is always open," she resolved.

"Won't you be cold?" I asked her.

"I'll suck it up and deal with it," she made her carefully mastered pouty face.

"You're grumpy when you're tired," I stated simply.

"Is this an abnormality?" she stared at me without blinking.

"No," I said slowly, "But the fact that you can go that long without blinking is."

She smiled. I knew I could do it.

"So, the park?" I checked.

"The park it is," she said resolvedly.

We left the coffee shop and walked down the sidewalk. I realized that it was a beautiful night, and Tatiana just stared up at the sky and the stars reflected in her eyes. I never forgot that moment. It was small, we didn't even really talk the whole way to the park, but I saw her shining like those stars, and I realized that I never would be able change back into who I was, because she kept me grounded. In a way, that made me happy.

We got to the park around three-thirty, and I realized just how early I'd dragged her out of the house. I felt the slightest twinge of guilt, but I pushed it aside. I was glad to do so. It was my birthday, and I had resolved that meant I could be selfish.

Tatiana walked over to a bench coated in frost, and sat down. I did the same.

"Hey," she said quietly, not taking her eyes off the stars, "What was it like, never having a real birthday?"

"I don't know," I looked at my hands, and felt her glance at me, "I guess it was kind of lonely."

I looked up at her, and her eyes were staring into mine. I looked back down.

"I would just go out on that day, not come back until it was over. I pretty much just walked around, and sometimes I'd turn into a little kid and get a stranger to buy me cake."

"That's sad," she said, her eyes teaming with sympathy.

"It's no big deal," I shrugged.

"That's the sad part," she looked back up at the stars, "No one cared about you. You were okay with that. You'd still be okay with that."

I stared at her. Did I really not care if people thought I mattered? Why should I? I was better than most of them. Before I had come here, I had been better than all of them. Well, in most ways.

I looked away from her. I didn't get how she made me so confused about things I thought I'd understood for years.

I thought about the whole thing. I was immortal; I never changed. But, I was always changing. I usually didn't spend a day without changing both age and appearance. So, was I really immortal? And I'd fallen for a mortal, wouldn't she just grow old and die while I didn't get any older?

"You don't have to worry, you know."

"Huh?" I turned and faced her. She was smiling.

"The only thing you have to think about is now. The past doesn't matter. For the moment, neither does the future," she said reassuringly.

"You're wrong," she stared at me like I'd dropped a bomb, "I do have to think about it. There isn't anything else I can do."

"Are you sure?" she asked me, smiling again, "If that's all you're worried about, then we can fix that. You can think about good things in the past. You have those."

"Yeah, I do," I smirked. The memories were good ones. I shook my head in self-disgust.

"I'm such a pervert," I mumbled to myself.

"What?" Tatiana leaned closer.

"Just thinking about, uh, memories," my face got hot.

Tatiana laughed, "You're so silly."

* * *

And so my birthday came and went. Tatiana managed to get me home early to eat my cake, and also to see my daughter. I suppose seeing Lillian actually made my day. Every second I spent with her was special to me. She always pulled on my hair, but she wasn't strong in the slightest sense of the word, so I let her do it. She was a pain on Thanksgiving, though. All she wanted to do was throw potatoes at Tatiana's sister-in-law. Well, the real pain was not being able to laugh when she did.

Thanksgiving in and of itself was sort of a pain. All it consisted of was meeting a lot of people - all of which I didn't know, most of which I didn't like. But, the day after that they all left, and we got ready for Christmas. That part I enjoyed.

Buying the tree seemed like the most important decision of our lives, or at least that's what Susie and Tatiana made it out to be. It was the first time Jim and I had agreed on something, however - that the girls had gone insane. When they finally picked one out, it was brought back to the house, decorated, and lit up with colorful lights. The holiday was intriguing to me, in any case.

It was sort of a celebration of everything the Fullmetal kid didn't believe, so I liked it. Not to mention, sitting by a fire listening to music and drinking hot chocolate wasn't half bad. Spending time with my family was a good thing.

So, unlike everybody else, I was a little sad when Christmas morning came. The tree would come down, the music would stop. I didn't like the idea of that.

"Envy!" Tatiana yelled from the living room, "Come here!"

I couldn't help smiling about how happy it seemed to make everyone though. I walked into the family room, and what I saw made me want to jump for joy. Everyone seemed to be there, or at least, everyone that I liked. That narrowed it down a lot.

Aura was digging deeper into her stocking as Al watched her happily. Tatiana rocked Lillian in her arms, trying to get her to take interest in a stuffed bunny. Susie was talking to Jim about something he'd gotten her, and Edward was transmuting a beautiful piece of jewelry for Winry.

"You have one too," Tatiana nodded to the fireplace. Sure enough, one last stocking hung on the mantel, with my name woven neatly into it.

I walked over to it, and peered into it. Resting on the top of the stocking stuffers was a card. I picked it up, and flipped it over. My name was written on it in what I really hoped was red ink. The handwriting was, I didn't think it was Tatiana's. Somehow, the letter made me feel uncomfortable.

I held the letter up so she could see. She shrugged. I changed my index finger into a generally blunt and small blade and wedged it under the edge of the fold. I ripped it open neatly in one swiping motion. The letter inside was written on the thick expensive kind of paper. I had a feeling it hadn't been paid for. I unfolded it.

_Envy,_

_Go to the park, at dawn, on the first of January._  
_There we will see where your true loyalties lie._

Aura jumped up, and I turned to look at her. I knew what she was going to say. I still hoped that somehow, I was wrong.

* * *

**Author's Note: So, yeah, the climax is on its way! Aura, you haven't read this part yet! Good luck! Thank you for reading!**


	12. Chapter 12

"Father."

"What?" Edward was the first one to respond, "What do you mean?"

"Brother?" Al looked up him, "Could this be THE Father?"

"Yeah, Al," Aura said, not taking her eyes off of me, "It's him."

"What does it say?" Tatiana bounced Lillian in her arms, as she had started crying.

I handed her the letter. She read it over.

"What does it mean?" she looked at me. I had never seen her look so scared.

"It means a bloody fight," Aura said.

"But, what if we don't go?" Tatiana suggested desperately.

"He'll come here," Aura said simply.

"Yeah," I added, "If I know him at all, things will just be worse if we don't show. He'll just be more angry."

"But," Winry joined in, "We can't fight him, can we?"

"I don't know," Ed said, standing up, "If we all team up, Al, you and me with our alchemy, Envy with his transforming ability, and Aura and Tatiana with their gifts. Winry, you could even make me sturdier automail."

"We don't have much of a choice," I said in defeat, "We should do what he said."

And just like that, we became an army. Ed and I took turns teaching Tatiana how to fight, and in the meantime, Aura tried to predict fight moves and tell us where to block, or dodge or hit, by yelling it at us from a safe distance. Winry worked hard to make Ed the ideal arm and leg, and did ridiculously well, due to her lack of time. The surgery was difficult, due to the fact the stumps would need to be fully recovered before the fight.

Tatiana was improving at martial arts, but she wasn't anywhere close to Ed, Al, and my level. She wouldn't be able to land a punch on Father, I knew that. But, she insisted on coming. I suggested she stay home, but she wouldn't hear of it. I was worried I'd spend more time protecting her than fighting. I couldn't have a distraction. I had talked to Ed and Al, and they agreed on a plan. As soon as the fight started, they would transmute a wall around her, to keep her out of the fight. I felt terrible, but I had to keep her safe.

We left early on the first. The night was so quiet, it was hard to believe that a battle was about to happen, but in a way, the silence made it worse. It was like an ache grew in my chest with every passing second. The sun began to rise. Soon the bottom of the sun cleared the horizon.

"Where is he?" I growled under my breath.

"Show yourself, you bastard!" Ed yelled into the morning.

"Envy!" Aura screamed from her tree.

She jumped down, making a loud thud when she hit the ground.

"You have to go back to the house now!"

I felt my eyes get as big as saucers. He'd tricked us! Lillian!

"Tatiana!" I turned to her, "Hold onto my neck!"

She held on. I let red sparks run all over my body as I grew larger. I reached my full size and entered my true form. Tatiana shifted her weight uncomfortably on my back.

"Just try not to look at them," I said quickly. I'd grown to hate all of the human lives that had been forced upon me, forced to appear again whenever I took that form.

"Ed, Al!" I said loudly, not that anything about this body was quiet.

They transmuted towers and jumped onto my back as well.

"Go!" Aura yelled up at me.

I didn't waste another second. I started running.

We ran past buildings, fields, all going by far to fast to focus on. I heard Ed saying he was going to be sick. I ignored him. As I neared the house, I saw a bright flash of light. It wasn't alchemy, though. It looked like… fire?

We turned around the block and came to a halt in front of our house. There were people in front of it, defending it with full force. I didn't bother to see who they were, all I knew was that I was grateful.

I began to shrink back to my original form. Ed and Al jumped off and hit the ground hard. They didn't seem fazed, though. As soon as Tatiana judged it was safe for her, she jumped as well, and ran inside. No sooner had I reached my original form than I transformed my arms into blades. As soon as I was at eye level with him, he turned and faced me, easily deflecting the attacks at his side. He was toying with them.

"Envy," he held out his hands to me in a loving gesture.

"Hey, Dad," I had never addressed him with such informality. It was fun.

"Why have you left me?" he said, sadness in his eyes, "Come back to us."

"Rot in hell," I sneered at him. He didn't move, but spikes sprouted through my feet made from concrete. I screamed. It really hurt, not to mention, I couldn't lift one of my feet without putting pressure on the other one. He probably would've killed me right then, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw something black moving through the air towards Father. He deflected it, but his reaction was slow. He hadn't left any room for error. I looked to my left, and saw the last two people I expected to see.

"Gluttony," Lust said, "Do be a dear and help Envy get off of those spikes."

He hobbled over to me and grabbed my knees and lifted me up over the points of concrete. I had to admit, I was little embarrassed than he'd just helped me, but I didn't have time to dwell on it.

"Damn it!" Ed ran past me, and tried to trip Father with a small wall coming towards his feet. He stepped over it with ease. He kept his eyes on me, though. Suddenly, I knew he'd made a decision. If he couldn't have me on his side, I was too powerful of an ally for them to have. The only thing I had time to do was blink.

A wall came up behind me, and slammed hard against my back, pushing me flat on my stomach. Then, the ground underneath me rose up and pushed me against the wall behind me. I saw a fire change its direction and come towards me, and I was covered in it. All of my senses shut down, all I could understand was pain. When the fire subsided, I was lying on the ground, the walls gone from around me. I felt my skin growing back around my skull.

Then came the spikes. Not small one like the ones in my feet, but large ones, taking more life force out of me with each blow. Then, they stopped. Everything stopped.

I looked up, and what I saw made me want to be sick to my stomach.

Another spike was close enough for me to have reached out with my arm and touched it, but it had been stopped. In front of the spike, was a ginger wolf, with its teeth bared in what was unmistakably pain. A pool of blood was forming on the ground underneath her. Everyone had stopped to stare at this with horrified faces, save my father. He was smiling insanely.

"You bastard!" Ed rushed him. He didn't even think to use alchemy. His fist collided with my father's face. He hit him again. Again. A black form smashed into him and knocked him into the street, off of our lawn. Greed was standing over him, in full ultimate shield form.

"Envy!" a voice came from my right, "You have to get up!"

I looked up, and saw a man wearing a blue military uniform that looked like it hadn't been washed for months. Roy Mustang.

"I'll work with you long enough to kill him!" he said, making it clear that our alliance wouldn't last very long after that.

I stood.

I ran out into the street. Roy was behind me. I flinched a little when fire rocketed past me and ignited my dad. I overcame my fear, and reached into the fire surrounding him. I felt all of my anger boiling over. It was his fault I had spent centuries in misery. It was his fault I had watched my mother die and never got to tell her goodbye. I was his fault if Tatiana died! I felt myself screaming. My hand reached his chest, and easily reached through his skin. I grasped the philosopher's stone at his core, and ripped it out. My other hand, which was still a blade, ripped down at his throat. Without the stone, in that one moment when his body failed to reattached itself, he was no stronger than a human child.

I used the traction his dust created to spin myself around and run back towards Tatiana. I don't remember running back to her, I got to her so quickly without even realizing it.

I looked at her from the front now, and I was able to see her side, a concrete spike deeply embedded onto her blood-crusted fur. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was labored.

"What do I-" I felt panic rising, "I don't- how can I-"

"Fullmetal," Roy Mustang's voice came from behind me, "You have the most experience in the field of bioalchemy, correct?"

Ed looked at him, his eyes growing wide, "That doesn't mean that I can…"

"Please," I stared up at him. He was my last hope. I couldn't do anything. I needed his help.

"You loved her too, didn't you?" I heard my voice crack, "You have to try!"

He clenched his teeth and stared at the ground and brought his hands up, like was about to transmute, but he put them down.

"Get Winry."

* * *

"Envy," Winry said to me, "Can you hold Tatiana perfectly still while we get the rock out of her?"

I nodded, and placed my hands on her belly, one of them right under the wound, ready to take her full weight and not let her fall. I tried hard to ignore the warm liquid dripping onto my hands.

"Al," Winry said, "Can you put that spike back into the ground at the exact same angle it came up?"

"Mm," he nodded, and got ready to transmute.

"Do it as slow as you can," she emphasized. Then she moved on to tell Ed his job.

"As it exits her body, close the wound, as best you can."

We were all ready, and we were all terrified.

"One," Winry said loudly, "Two… three!"

I made sure not to let her body sink closer to the ground as she got heavier. It was a painfully slow process. Al could only extract the spike as fast as Edward could heal accurately. It seemed like an entire age later that Winry told me to set her down.

"It's too dangerous for her change back," Edward said, "She's got two broken ribs and her organs are mangled together, though none of them are punctured."

I heard footsteps, hard and fast against the ground. We all looked up, and saw Aura running towards us, breathing hard. She reached us, and put her hands on her knees.

"He's… right…" she heaved, "We… have to… take her… to… a vet."

* * *

Well, the vet thought we were all crazy, until he did some kind of test in back that showed human brain activity in a wolf. Then he thought he was crazy. He operated, though. She wasn't about turn back into a human for a long while, but when she did, she couldn't stop talking. She recovered fully, and everyone sort of went their own ways. Aura invited Ed and Al to stay in her guest room, but I had a feeling Al wouldn't be spending his nights in the guest room.

Roy Mustang promised he'd have me neutered someday, and went to further investigate the United States military, as he had been doing in between his trips to spy on us.

Lust and Gluttony went missing shortly after the battle, and their absence wasn't noticed until after Tatiana's surgery, though I had a feeling they hadn't gone very far. Greed sort of became a drifter, but he dressed wonderfully, which gave me a secret suspicion that he was the uncatchable thief we'd been hearing so much about in the news. He stopped by every great once in a while, although his visits became a lot less frequent over the next few years. He did show up to Lillian's sixth birthday - uninvited - though. That was when we gave him his invitation.

We sent Aura's in the mail along with Ed's and Al's, and we just set two invites out one night labeled "Lust" and "Gluttony", which were gone in the morning. Winry came by often enough to get hers to her without much difficulty, although I'd wished she would've opened it somewhere that her screams of delight couldn't bother the neighbors.

Ed and Al insisted on helping me pick out the tux, which looked good, yet totally wrong on me. The party was extremely weird, due to Greed's continuous complaints about the lack of strippers, which had been ruled out by the fact that Gluttony would've eaten them, among other reasons.

Before I knew it, the day before the - wedding - came.

I stayed outside that night, under the full moon. It really was the most beautiful night I'd seen since I'd come here. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. The stars shone brightly despite the light of the moon which normally would've all but drowned out the stars.

"Are you scared?" a voice said quietly from behind me.

I shook my head, "No."

Al sat down next to me on the porch step, "It sure is a nice night, huh?"

"Yeah," I sighed.

"Maybe it's a sign," Al said, slowly, and turned his gaze to me.

"You think?" I smiled.

"I do," he said confidently, "Your love for each other isn't like anything I've ever seen before."

"It's different," I said, turning my gaze to the stars again, "I thought I'd felt all the emotions in the world, love among them."

"And?" he said.

"I hadn't. I had no idea," I said slowly, "What love was. Not until I met her."

"Does it make it easier?"

"What?" I turned to him again.

"Even though… your parents are gone," he said thoughtfully, "Does having her make it easier?"

"You know, don't you?" I asked him, "You may not have gone as far as I have, but your pain is eased too, isn't it? By Aura?"

"Yes," he said slowly, "Love makes it easier."

* * *

**Author's Note: Yay! The time has come! And we all take a moment to fangirl for our lovely couple that's come so far. Thank you Aura, I couldn't have written this without you.**


	13. Chapter 13

That morning was hectic. Aura and Winry switched off between helping Tatiana do whatever she was doing and guarding the door to make sure I didn't get in. As if I had the opportunity between Ed and Al fixing and re-fixing my tux and my hair. Keeping it all out of my face was a pain though, and when they were through, I wasn't sure if I was looking in a mirror or watching a movie.

I had to walk past the wrath of Aura in order to get to the altar, and was really scared of what might happen if I got within a five foot radius of her.

The guy we'd worked with in rehearsals smiled at me encouragingly when I got to the altar.

"Hey," Al said, once he and Ed had taken their place at my side, "Think of it like this. Today is the beginning of the rest of your life."

I smiled at him. I wasn't sure how, but he'd become my best friend. Yeah, his loyalty was still in his brother, but I was glad he could stand by my side.

Pretty soon, people started filling up the benches along the isle. Greed, Lust, and Gluttony were in the front, and I really hoped that they'd behave. Gluttony burped loudly as if in response to my prayer. Lust put a hand on his head though, the way she did when she wanted him to be quiet. I really hoped that didn't mean I owed her.

Roy Mustang and Hawkeye came, and sat on Tatiana's side of the isle. Hawkeye actually raised her hand in my direction, and I suddenly felt guilty that I couldn't remember her first name.

The more people who came, the more nervous I got. What if I forgot my vows?

But then, right when I was about to have a panic attack, Tatiana's piano instructor from when she was began playing the wedding march tune I knew so well.

That's when I saw her. Her dress, her hair, her eyes - bluer than ever before. She was beautiful. No. She was beautiful before. She was perfect.

As she walked closer, I could see her in more detail. Her cheeks were bright, her eyes seemed to stand out, and her hair was intricately braided along the sides of her head, the rest of it curling over her shoulders like a fountain.

Ed and Al seemed to forget their nonreligious streak just long to enough to say 'oh, my God'.

Her dad, Jim, was walking her down the isle, and I could tell he was focusing all of his energy into not stepping on the dress. When they reached me at the altar, Jim put Tatiana's hand in mine, smiled at me, and nodded his head.

Everyone sat down. The pastor started off talking, and I waited for my cue to say my vows. It came, and I might have spoken to fast at first, but I cooled down.

"I, Envy," I said, remembering that we'd ruled out using my full name, "Take you Tatiana Jacobs."

"To have and to hold," she said back.

"For better of for worse," I gulped.

"For richer or for poorer," she blinked and smiled up at me.

"In sickness and in health," I smiled back.

"To love."

"To cherish, as long as we both shall live," she finished.

"I do."

"I do."

I saw the pastor bow his head in approval out of the corner of my eye, "You may kiss the bride."

Tatiana shook her head, "No, the bride may kiss the groom."

She leaned up and kissed me lightly on the lips, and I heard somebody in the crowd whistle. We pulled away from each other, and the crowd broke into applause.

After we'd left the altar, I was consumed by praise, and hugs - even from Aura. Ed even gave me a thumbs up. We danced around a little, which I was admittedly terrible at, and them we ate cake, and Aura attempted to braid my hair. She failed, by the way.

We went back home later that night, with just a few of our friends. We kicked then out early, and lots of them teased us for that. It's not like that was what I wanted to do anyway! If it had been, I would've kicked them out an hour earlier. I just wanted to show Tatiana something.

"Hey, Tatiana?" I asked.

"Hmm?"

"Can I talk to you?"

"Um, sure," she said, walking over to me and sitting on the couch.

"Well," I started, "Al said something to me today - that today was the beginning of the rest of my life - and it got me thinking. That night, in the park, when you said I didn't have to worry about my future - that's not true anymore."

"What are you getting at?" she asked me.

"I want to grow old with you, and live the rest of our lives together," I said slowly.

"But you can't really grow old," she pointed out.

"Yes I can. Tatiana, right now, I'm physically two years younger than you. When we first met, I was two years older. Would you like me to be two years older still?"

"It'd be nice if you were, I guess…"

That was all I needed to hear. I let red sparks run up my body, jumping me ahead six years.

"Envy?" Tatiana gasped, "You look…"

"Twenty-two, I hope," I smirked at her.

"Uh, yeah," she said, amazement on her face, "How did you-"

"I've been practicing," I explained, "Trying to make the form I take look older."

"I… I don't know what to say…" she sputtered, "You look… good."

"Thanks?" I said, uncertain of how to respond to that.

"I mean you're… hot… er."

I snickered, "Now, I can do this every year, and we can grow old together."

She smiled slowly, realizing how much easier this would make things.

"You won't mind getting old and gross?" she eyed me.

"This was my choice," I said, "If I minded, I wouldn't have suggested it. I want to spend the rest of our lives together, Tatiana. This is the best way to do it."

She burst into tears and hugged me.

"Tatiana?" I asked, hugging her back.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, "I'm just… so happy…"

"Me too," I said, "And I promise, it's going to stay that way."

And I kept that promise. She kept all of hers too. Lillian grew into a fine young woman, and if there ever was a finer child, I had not seen them in all of my years. Aura moved to Los Angeles, where she and Al lived quite happily. They had two children, one of which Aura was sure to name Edward. She named the other William, but refused to admit that it had any connection to me. Lillian and Edward married, and William married a beautiful girl named Hannah. They moved far away from Truckee, but Tatiana and I never left. The only person who ever came to visit us from the old days was Aura, and even that came rarely. However, we pick up our story on one of the rare occasions when she was there, though this time, it was not so much to say hello, as it was to say goodbye.

Aura sat in the corner, watching Tatiana and I, not saying a word. I sat right next to Tatiana, holding her frail hands in my own aged ones. I didn't have any regrets about growing old with her. The years we spent together were worth more to me than the hundreds of lifetimes I had led, put together. She was now eighty-seven, and my body said that I was eighty-nine. As was to be expected, my age hadn't taken a toll on me, but I couldn't say the same for her.

The doctor had said that it was simple old age, and that she wasn't suffering from illness. This was a small source of comfort to me, knowing that she wasn't in any more pain than she needed to be. Even so, I couldn't believe it. I had watched her get closer and closer to this every day, but it still seemed far too soon. I wasn't ready.

"Envy," she whispered, "Do you want to know something?"

"What?" I asked, fighting the horrible burning feeling in my chest. It had been growing ever since the news reached my ears. Aura had told me, but I hadn't cried. I couldn't. It was all I could do to see it through to the end.

"I love you, I always have, even before I met you," she breathed. It was the loudest noise she could make, but I had to lean in close to hear her.

"I know," I choked, "I love you too, always have, always will."

"Thank you," she told me, "You've given me all I could ever ask for."

Her eyes closed, and a tear fell down her cheek. Her ragged breathing slowed, and eventually, ceased.

"Tatiana?" tears finally found their way to my eyes, "No - no you can't - get up… Get up…"

I screamed, and buried my face in her chest. Breathing seemed impossible, the only air I got was from my deep, inward sobs. I had never cried like this before, in all my thousands of years. I never felt so alone.

Aura touched my back, but the contact felt far away. I wasn't in the room anymore. I was buried deep in my memories of her, and slowly realizing that there wouldn't be any more. I went back, to the night when she first told me that she loved me, to the time when she told me what heaven would be like for her. I knew that was where she was.

* * *

Everyone had left, save Aura and myself. I was on my knees in front of the grave, looking at the deep engraving on the stone:

Loving Mother  
Beloved Wife  
Ceaseless Friend

"Tatiana?" I asked, "Can you hear me? It's me. You never said I would be alright, I guess you were right about that much. You know how you told me… what your heaven would be like? It's not complete yet. There's still something missing."

I turned to Aura, having made up my mind. I didn't have to burn the house down to not go back on this one. I didn't have to say anything, she knew. She snapped her fingers, as she had done so many times before. I felt myself fall to the ground, small, in my true form. Aura helped me onto the grave, and I looked up at her, gratefully.

"Tatiana," I said, my voice stronger than it had been for months, "I'm coming. I won't leave you alone."

The Philosopher's Stone wasn't hard to grasp, and it burst in a red explosion. I fell on my side, and said the most important set of last words I could possibly think of.

"Thank you, Tatiana, you made this life worth living."

Aura stood there, watching the dust blow away.

"Thank you, Envy," she said, "You made hers worth living, too. I love you both. I know you both went. Tatiana was right, it's not a sad ending."

She turned, and walked home.

* * *

**Author's Note: Well I cried. Did you cry? Tell me if you cried...**


End file.
